Building and Property

The regulatory and contractual burdens being placed on parties, increased uncertainty of the business climate, the fragility of plans for construction projects, concerns over the robustness of supply chain partners, together with the profile resulting from increasing public and press scrutiny, are reasons why businesses are focussing even more closely on risks.

A new guide is consequently being developed by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA), which will aim to raise awareness of good practice in the approach to risk management in construction projects and programmes. The target audience includes clients, their advisors and supply chains.

Construction companies in Kirklees are being urged to train their workers to improve safety on the building site.

CITB-ConstructionSkills, the industry training board and sector skills council for construction is rolling out a new Health, Safety and Environment Test, which comes into place from April 1.

This comes at a time when the Health and Safety Executive has been clamping down on construction site safety.

Two events in May will bring together the Local Authority Contaminated Land Network (LACL) and the Brownfield Risk Management Forum (BRMF) of CIRIA, the Construction Industry Research and Information Association.

Firstly, on 16 May, a one-day event in York – Sampling and Monitoring for Hazardous Ground Gasses – will examine how current good guidance can lead to good practice in ground gas risk assessment. The seminar will highlight the importance of the conceptual site model and the potential for mathematical models. Case studies will be used to demonstrate the usefulness of the guiding principles for ground gas risk assessment.

On 8 March the RICS held its annual Expert Witness Conference at London’s Grange Holborn Hotel: the first since the landmark ruling in Jones v Kaney removed expert witness immunity. The conference was billed “…an invaluable opportunity to assess how the landscape has changed for expert witnesses both from a legal and a practice perspective.”

The Rt Hon Lord Justice Jackson gave the keynote address at the start of the day. The architect of the Government’s controversial civil law reforms spoke on the issue of The Role of Alternative Dispute Resolution in Furthering the Aims of The Civil Litigation Costs Review.