Author Archives: Colin Marrs

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the election of the UK’s first Labour government. Ruling with a minority government propped up by the Liberal Party, prime minister Ramsay MacDonald lasted less than a year before the Conservatives swept back to power. Despite the short spell in office, Labour’s administration…

With less than two months to go, the new system for registering the competence of building-control inspectors appears to be in chaos. Construction News investigates How easy is it to make the move from an unregulated profession to a regulated one? When it comes to building inspectors, we’re about to…

Earlier this month, Construction News revealed emerging plans for a new initiative for contractors to collaborate on promoting the sector through schools outreach. Specialist firm the School Outreach Company is working with senior sector figures on plans to raise £100,000 with the aim of creating a network of five regional…

As coalition education secretary between 2010-2014, Michael Gove gained a reputation for sweeping aside vested interests and bureaucracy to get things done. Housing secretary since 2021, Gove has been robust in taking on recalcitrant developers and freeholders. Whether he can succeed in these areas remains to be seen. But at…

Housebuilder Barratt has agreed a deal to buy rival Redrow, allowing the combined business to make £90m in cost savings, it announced this morning. An announcement to the London Stock Exchange said that the £2.5bn deal, which would make the new firm the biggest housebuilder in the UK, would drive…

Big hitters in the construction industry are working on a major new collaboration aimed at promoting the UK construction industry to secondary school children. Specialist firm the School Outreach Company is working with senior sector figures on plans to raise £100,000 with the aim of creating a network of five…

The construction sector in England saw a 6 per cent year-on-year drop in apprenticeship starts last year, according to the latest government figures. Figures compiled by the Department for Education (DfE) state that 24,530 workers started construction, planning and the built environment apprenticeships in 2022/23. This represented a fall from…

Contractors can start building tower blocks with some gaps in design details under the new building safety regime, the regulator in charge has said. In a webinar explaining how the new rules for higher-risk buildings (HRBs) will work under the regime starting in April, Neil Hope-Collins, the operational policy lead…

The Roman god Janus gave his name to the month of January. The deity was usually depicted with two faces, one looking backwards and one forwards – symbolising the transition from the past to the future. Retrospection was an unfortunate but unavoidable theme in 2023. Many firms that went bust…

HMRC has criticised the behaviour of two insolvency practitioners who oversaw an aborted attempt to save Squibb Group in the run-up to its demise. Louise Baxter and Dominik Thiel-Czerwinke, from insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor, had been nominated to implement a proposed company voluntary arrangement (CVA) that would have created a…