Category Archives: Green stuff

Apr 21 2012

The latest gadget – a must have!

I shall in the USA next week, it’s been a while since I ventured across the pond (last November). And they have something we don’t. Something I definitely need. Essential I think.

A Nike Fuel Band. This has to be the best gadget useful tool ever invented. Crucially it has an accelerometer which is a sort of gyroscope. It can measure your every move. You can set goals each day and like magic it shows you how you are using up that sometimes elusive elixir of life – Nike Fuel. The LED display changes from red to green as you get close to your goals!

The band looks cool, plugs into your computer via usb and is clearly life-changing. Life changing to the extent that it has just about sold out all across America. I’m hoping that next week they’ll have made a few more so I can get my hands on one!

And in preparation I already have the app loaded into my trusty iPhone.

Prepare to be impressed with my new life…

Apr 12 2012

Mayor Part Two….

I promise not to blog about the Mayoral issue again at least for a few days…

Last night there was a letter at home for my son, he shared the contents with me.

The headlines:
1. £1m wasted
2. Fat Cat Pay – £120k pa. for Mayor
3. Corruption – one person to influence.
4. No Say – local Councillors have no say.
5. Stalemate – one party Mayor, the other party in control = arguing.

Oh, and “After 718 years, the Tories plan to scrap Nottingham’s traditional Mayor and Sheriff and replace them with an extra Mayor costing more than £1m“

Is this it?

1. I still don’t get the £1m figure (or is it ‘more than £1m’) – the cost of a referendum and two elections seems to be estimated at £300k? The rest must be salary?
2. Fat Cat Pay (ignore the emotive stuff) I wonder where the figure comes from – the average suggested by Government is £88,267? And savings could be made as some of the roles are duplicated?
3. Corruption – doesn’t even warrant a discussion. Suggest they need to look close to home on this one.
4. No say – not sure this is entirely correct. The Mayor doesn’t abolish the Council.
5. So the Labour party assume that the Mayor would be Tory? Do they know something we don’t?

Where is the suggestion we would lose the Sheriff of Nottingham? Is this just emotive clap-trap?

Come on guys – we can do better than this in the debate surely. This is small time politics and pure spin in part. Time for a grown up discussion?

The thing I don’t really understand is why Labour have thrown in the towel? Surely it would be better to embrace the process – and with their present power base you might expect them to romp home to victory?

Apr 6 2012

The commercial property market – what next?

After I wrote my ‘spring in the step‘ piece earlier in the week, my illusion was swiftly shattered by the publication of data from PropertyData yesterday. My monthly bulletin showing the Investment deals was the first three months of 2012 analysis.

In essence £5.8bn of property was transacted in three months.Which is a lot of cash, but is around half of the amount transacted in the same period in 2011. It’s worse too than 2010, but marginally better than the grim 2009.

But this is a skewed market. Of the transactions reported 55% were in the Central London office market! The scraps were spread around the regions!

Interestingly the average yield has come down – it is now 5.83% – which is a refection on where the money is going – i.e. London. The lower the yield the more expensive the property…

There’s very little Bank cash to throw around, enquiries are limited and so perhaps my spring feeling was short-lived. A bit like the weather.

With blue skies one day and snow the next – who’d be a weatherman or valuer in these times?

Apr 5 2012

Nottingham – The Workplace Parking Levy

The new Workplace Parking Levy (Tax) came into force this week and I have deliberately avoided blogging about it until now. I have been thinking this one through. I’m not sure I am closer to a conclusion, but I do have some thoughts.

Firstly the positive. I think we should plan our transport for the long term. We need to find better ways of getting people around that the motor car. That doesn’t apply to me, of course. This is because I need my car for my work (not to mention the fact that I can be allergic to some of the nutters you find on public transport).

The tram seems a pretty good thing – after all that’s what the WPL(T) is paying for. In some small way I will benefit as it will come past my office window – although if it dings more than once a week I shall be unhappy.

But then some of the negatives.

As a business we have decided not to pass on the charges to our staff. This is partly as we have three offices and how we could charge on office but both the others seems to be difficult. Then there is the charge itself – £288 this year for every space where there are more than 10 at the workplace. Then 2013 sees the WPL rise to £334, while the subsequent two years will see the WPL(T) increase to £364 and £381. That’s 32% over 3 years. Wow.

Then there’s the small matter of ‘marginal taxation’. There’s no such thing when it comes to WPL(T). If you have 10 spaces you pay £0.00. If you have 11 you pay £3,168. I’m not sure this is right or fair.

Business is tough at the moment and adding this sort of overhead to the firm is not helpful. We bring people into the City to work, we generate jobs and prosperity.

As a firm we have already started to see incoming business ask whether a property is caught by the WPL(T). That could be a slippery slope?

Apr 2 2012

The A453 is getting closer

It seems my cynicism about the start date for the A453 may have been slightly misplaced. I was of the view that we would see some bright yellow diggers and lots of minor celebrities sod cutting – in the weeks before a general election.

But apparently not. There is news that The Government has brought forward the dualling of the A453. It is suggested that the preparatory work will begin ‘within weeks’ and the road will be complete by the end of 2014 or early 2015 at the latest. It is long overdue as this is the worst possible access to the City from the South. The 10 miles trench is frequently log jammed. Accidents just cause tailbacks into Clifton or onto the motorway.

The extension of the Enterprise zone from the current Boots site to the Beeston former Siemens site, Science Park and Medi-Park will all benefit from this major infrastructure improvement.

The works are expected to cost between of £141m and £194m, with Nottinghamshire County Council contributing £20m and Rushcliffe Borough Council £500,000.

This really is good news as with the completion of the tram line extensions due to complete at the same time, Nottingham really will have excellent transport.

But all of this is coming at a cost. In the short term we will have some major upheaval, which is always difficult – especially for businesses. The tram is costing businesses the Workplace Parking Levy – which is a significant sum. Trams are, in my view too expensive. It can be cheaper to park in a car park for a couple of hours than pay a return ticket for two adults. I know there is fuel cost, but it’s not attractive enough a proposition.

But it is good news that the City’s infrastructure is being improved – not a moment too soon!

Mar 30 2012

The National Planning Policy Framework – debated

As I had intimated in an earlier blog post I was in London on Wednesday night for my first meeting at the Academy of Urbanism. It was a debate on the National Planning Policy Framework (“NPPF”) which had itself been dragged kicking and screaming onto the Statute Books earlier this week.

Three speakers gave an ‘honest view’ of the Legislation – two were quite critical, Charmaine Young CBE was less so, imploring that we ‘give it a chance’.

But David Lock CBE was a good speaker. He had an interesting take on this new piece of Law. He ran through what it did – i.e. simplified the overly complex Planning process – reducing the 1,337 pages of Policy to just 50. The fuss previously had been that there was a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ which the press had seized upon as meaning lots of green bling buildings on the green belt. This has now been tightened – both in terms of the an adoption of the standard deficit ion of ‘sustainable’ but there is also some watering down of the ‘presumption in favour’.

But David also had a view that there were some amazing last minute additions – including the concept of a ‘garden city’. Hardly new, but a Grant Shapps idea (he lives in Welwyn Gardien City apparently). Also Councils have a Duty to Co-operate with their neighbours and if they can’t agree they have todo a memorandum of disagreement? David also suggested that Local Government is not equipped to handle the responsibility…

The final speaker was Paul Murrain who was equally vexed by the NPPF. He suggested that our boot environment was there for much longer than the short-termist politics at play here – and I agree. His favourite part was that we should replace poor design with better design…

The NPPF has raised a lot of debate; but it is now here and we have to work with it. However, I suspect as did most people in the room, there will be plenty of work around in trying to test and push the boundaries of the new rules. Only time will tell, but if it doesn’t work we shall see a real mess in our places…

Mar 29 2012

Building in factories

Last week I saw a new type off student accommodation at Eco Build. It was being launched by Terrapin and had been designed by my good friends at Church Lukas Architects. Andy Roberts, Partner, explained to me that he had been working on a collaborative system of some time. The showcase room was built in 5 days and was intended to be able to demonstrate the end product to clients. It certainly beat a CAD plan or even a 3d drawing!

This is a really interesting concept for this type of space. Student accommodation, by its nature is pretty much standard – lots of rooms piled on top of each other (just like the students will be?) and of a fairly similar design internally. I have seen ‘bathroom pods’ before – where the bathrooms are simply dropped in having been constructed in a factory.

But this new concept is different – it is the whole room. It felt like good space inside. The quality is great and I would happily stay in one of these rooms.

Of course there are some benefits – being built in a factory takes out much of the British weather risk. There is a repetition of design and construction so the quality tends to increase as familiarity increases. Once complete the whole unit is taken to site and ‘dropped’ in to a frame. The services are then simply hooked up and the place is opened. It is a simplified process where much of the risk is managed off-site.

This is a great way of building – for this type of build. It’s not for everyone, but where there is a repetitive requirement (hotels, prisons, student accommodation et al) this is pretty good. There is no massive cost saving – as you still need labour and a factory, but the benefits outweigh the downside.

I was suitably impressed. And wondered if this was far too good for the ‘great unwashed’!!

Mar 23 2012

The Academy of Urbanism

I am an “Academician” – which is a first for me. If I am really honest I hadn’t even heard of the word (my secondary school education shining through!). But I have been invited to join the Academy of Urbanism, which is an honour and membership is by election (i.e you can’t apply!).

I go to my first event next week in London – so I expect to blog about it afterwards, but for now I have been doing my background work on the organisation. In essence it is about getting together professionals across a diverse range of backgrounds with a stated of aim of learning from place. It’s about learning from the collective understanding of place making and sharing best practice.

I am really interested in this. The concept of creating places rather than collections of buildings must allow us to crate better communities and places where people want to live and work. It might all sound a bit ‘fluffy’ sometimes, but places are complex. You can’t manufacture a community – it doesn’t work like that. But when communities grow and flourish they take on a whole new dimension.

But part of this is all about learning. We do need to share ideas and collaborate. We need to think through what works and what doesn’t. We have to test things and try different things. Only then can we hope to put together that magic formula.

Places generally have to have a story – to make them unique. They have to be cohesive and the message needs to be clear.As is obvious this is not always easy.

Next weeks debate is about the new National Planning Policy Framework – a simplified rule-book about the Planning system. It is much misunderstood and have had mixed press. The presumption is in favour of sustainable development – which has been jumped on as meaning you can build and eco-bling house in the green belt. It’s not quite as simple as that!

I’ll do a blog after the event next week….

Mar 22 2012

Eco-Build

For the third time in as many weeks I found myself trailing around and exhibition – this time Eco-Build in London. I say London loosely as it was held at ExCel – which is closer to Southend-on-Sea than London I think!

This was a slightly different exhibition from the Building Exhibitions I used to go to at the NEC in Birmingham, the focus not surprisingly was on sustainable design and products. I have to say that some of the products just look as though they have been badged ‘green’ to get their place at the show. It was a massive undertaking – it would take you more than a day to get around the place!

I went to meet a few people, but also to see my friends from Nottingham University – some 2nd year students were exhibiting a pallet shelter which was great fun -although a bit thin on practicality! But there was also a Passive Haus competition run in conjunction with Isover – where Nottingham University had five entrants in the 8 shortlisted schemes. These were all designs centred around Trent Basin Nottingham. there were some really good ideas. The winners were Dan Shanahan and Emmett McNamamra from Edinburgh University. Nottingham students took second and third prizes.

I had a fascinating chat with Prof. Wolfgang Feist – the man who ‘invested’ the Passiv Haus concept. He was a really interesting character and was evangelising the system – explaining that it is not complex. It is about keeping the design simple. And very airtight!

I also saw a containerised student village offering which had been built by Terrapin and designed by Church Lukas Architects in Nottingham. It was really good and a very clever use of the technology of building in factories and then constructing on-site afterwards. The Formula 1 Hotel concept was similar to the Japanese Hotel – it was ‘cosy’ to say the least!

Putting to one side the big glossy stands, I was, once again, impressed by the work produced by the students at the Universities.

Mar 18 2012

Geneva Motor Show in pictures….

As I’m now back home I’m able to get some proper wi-fi – and an ability to upload some images from the Geneva Motor Show yesterday. So, when pictures speak a thousand words, there’s less words… Enjoy!

The Bugatti Veyron

The Lotus Evora S

The Pagani Huayra

The Maserati GranTurismo

The Mercedes SL63

The (only) Lamborghini Aventador J

The big question – which one to buy….