Features

The latest news, features, comment and analysis of the UK housebuilding market covering policy, regulation, planning, technology, new developments and products

From the groundup

July 1, 2007 Feature

Housebuilders are looking for clever solutions to increasingly complex groundworks challenges. Andrew Leech investigates the products and services on offer

On air

July 1, 2007 Feature

As the government drives through the code for sustainable homes, airtightness remains a key focus of new homes’ sustainability. NHBC’s Satvinder Sahota takes a look at the challenges facing developers and at how the NHBC can help

Development of the month

July 1, 2007 Feature

Attention to detail is fundamental to Carrot’s approach. Steve Menary checks out the niche developer’s L’Ecole scheme in north London, where a Victorian schoolhouse conversion is coupled with a brand new contemporary apartment building

Cross purposes

July 1, 2007 Feature

Cross subsidy deals done to fund on-site affordable housing and estate regeneration are eroding traditional boundaries between housebuilders, housing associations and ALMOs, reports Mark Smulian

Urban renewal focus: salford

July 1, 2007 Feature

In 2011 the BBC will move to Salford. Chris Windle finds out how it is kick-starting regeneration in a city where the housing market had collapsed, in the first of our three, monthly urban renewal special features focused on Salford, Newcastle and London

High hopes

July 1, 2007 Feature

A daunting task awaits the newly created National Housing and Planning Advice Unit. It must arrest and reverse an apparently inexorable rise in the number of people economically excluded from the housing market, reports Chris Webb

Unlock The Land

July 1, 2007 Feature

There are only two routes to higher housing numbers: higher densities and more land with planning permission. The recovery in housebuilding since it reached a post-war low of 130,000 homes per annum in 2001 has been driven entirely by higher densities. Land supply has been on a downward trend since 1994. Now government must deliver the land so housebuilders can deliver the homes. HBF economic affairs director John Stewart Housebuilder, July 2007

HBF mini-manifesto

July 1, 2007 Feature

The HBF has drawn up a “mini-manifesto” for housing, which, if adopted by prime minister Gordon Brown, will help to address the country’s housing shortage, it claims.

CLG disputes packs loophole claim

July 1, 2007 Feature

Sellers may be able to get away without paying for a home information pack (HIP) because of a loophole in the regulations, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyor (RICS) has claimed.

Technically speaking

June 1, 2007 Feature

Andrew Leech discovers how home technology, or “infotainment,” can put the wow factor into your schemes