Fresh ideas needed for HA's

Recent meetings with housing association clients have brought into focus the need for innovation and creative thinking if they are to maintain current service levels. In addition to the £450 million coalition ministers have already slashed from the Homes and Communities Agency budget, providers face further cuts of between 25 and 40 per cent following the autumn spending review. In January, landlords will suffer a planned 2.5 per cent VAT hike. If associations are to maintain any sort of meaningful development programme, they will have to develop partnerships with developers and contractors that add real value. Early contractor involvement must surely be the starting point, combined with some clever funding products. There's also the issue of how HA's will deliver their sustainability agendas - like housing need, this is something that's not going to go away. One thing appears certain - the housing providers of 2020 will be completely different animals than they are today

New MD announced

Our new MD was announced earlier this month. Jason Papprill will be taking over the reins from Dave Watson, who retired earlier this year. Jason starts in September

It's not about building!

I keep telling people that it's not about building any more. That's not just a defence mechanism for my own lack of technical knowledge, despite many years in the industry! Being able to build these days is a given. As the recession bites the onus is on builders and consultants to add value to their customers and potential customers, and network harder. If you've something worthwhile to offer networking can become a pleasurable experience. It's finding out that something worthwhile that's the problem.

Hull Girls reach national finals!

The Girls U12 Kingston Upon Hull Hockey Team sponsored by Hobson & Porter, made the Yazoo National Mini Finals this weekend and finished 6th in the country, narrowly missing out in the top 4 playoffs on goal difference by only 1 goal, only losing 1 game. Abigail Smee was announced Player of the Tournament. Pictured with the team is H&P site manager Mark Smee

H&P selected for Doncaster refurbs

Doncaster Council has appointed Hobson and Porter Ltd to carry out the refurbishment works in the six streets scheme. This includes Childers, Palmer, Cooper, North and South Streets as well as St Andrews Terrace.

The work is due to start on 4 May 2010, and will involve replacing over 180 windows and 165 front doors. The outer appearance of the homes will also be improved by brick washing. Residents can expect colour and style samples for the new doors to be available next week so that those receiving them can pick one.

A schedule of work is currently being created by the contractor so that each resident receives as much notice as possible of the intended dates when work will be carried out to their home. This is to minimise any inconvenience.

Director of Development Peter Dale said: "This is an important milestone in the project which is changing the face of the six streets area of Doncaster. "We would urge residents to respond as soon as possible as that will help with the ordering of materials to complete the works."

Local Employment Charter

Just returned from the Guildhall where I collected an award from Alan Johnson on behalf of Hobson & Porter to recognise our commitment to local employment. It was a great networking event and gave me the opportunity to talk to all the great and good of Hull, but it did make me think "what have we really done to deserve this recognition?".

Employing and developing a local workforce (myself excepted, as I live in sheffield?) makes good business sense, but the pledge that we made should be supported by hard evidence if it to have real impact. That's why we have committed to work with organisations such as Construction Works to ensure that we are held to account.

Commitment to local employment can be proactively encouraged through pledges and charters, but will only be delivered when it forms part of an integrated procurement strategy. Local authorities and regeneration projects can achieve this by structuring tender bids and PQQ's to favour suppliers that can demonstrate a local and sustainable supply chain. This should include not only local economic benefit in terms of training and respending, but also the carbon efficiencies that are associated with buying local.

Let's hope that when the billions of pounds that are spent nationwide over the coming years to retrofit the housing stock are handed out, that this work is delivered by local companies, and that the procurement process actively encourages this outcome.

Gearing up for training

Fresh from our success at being appointed to the Yorbuild construction framework, we are now embarking on our first projects, a series of affordable housing schemes for East Riding Council. The client's funding from the Homes annd Communities Agency is conditional on them delivering a load of training and apprenticeship targets. This includes apprenticeships, NVQ's and work experience. We also have to show that we are hitting their targets on the number of operatives on site carrrying CSCS cards, and passing health and safety touch screen tests. All the East Riding contractors working on Yorbuild (including Halls, Quibells, Houltons and H&P) will be expecting our subcontractors to help us to deliver these targets. It won't be easy, but it's the way the wind is blowing, so we need to get on top of how we manage it as soon as possible. The BSF schools programme for Hull has similar targets, with over 500 apprenticeships planned, so in a few years we will no doubt all be experts, and probably over-qualified!

We go top of Monster Munch Trophy!!!

H&P has gone top of the Monster Munch Trophy for the first time after a string of impressive results against teams including Wyke College and Neville Tuckers. Our team includes the following players who are rumoured to be Rafa targets: James McGee(GK) Chris Thompson(DEF) Steve Swallow(DEF) James Thompson(DEF) Louis Bradley(MID) Paul Swallow(MID) Mark Swallow(MID) Mark Kelsey(MID) Gary Allen(FWD) But no doubt Rafa would play them all out of position. Steve claims to have run the length of the pitch to score a cracking goal in a recent game, though we've only got his word for that. Other scorers have included Mark, Paul and Gary

Halving Waste to Landfill

We commit to playing our part in halving the amount of construction, demolition and excavation waste going to landfill by 2012. We will work to adopt and implement standards for good practice in reducing waste, recycling more, and increasing the use of recycled and recovered materials We've just made our commitment, and will let you know how we get on,. By the end of 2009 we will have a full year's data, and we are working with Stuart Wells at Transwaste to help us deliver against our commitment

Winning work in the public sector

Thanks to Ven Management for inviting us to speak alongside Provesta at todays event at Bridlington Spa. We gave a presentation on our experience of winning public sector contracts, and Tony Carroll of Provesta ran through some of the activities we have undertaken together to drive continuous improvement within our business and align ourselves with customers' changing needs. Lee Parkinson gave an overview of the Yorbuild framework, and East Riding Council and VEN Management outlined the opportunities available through involvement in the framework and the Target initiative, which is aimed at promoting construction opportunities for SME's in the region. Lee Parkinson took the opportunity to sound a warning to successful Yorbuild contractors. There will be ongoing checks to hold contractors to account for the promises made in their submissions - so now's the chance for everyone to actually drive down the glossy marketing blurb through their business and demonstrate real progress on the ground.

Find H&P on Flickr & Scribd

I've posted a load of our project photographs onto Flickr, the photo sharing social media site. To view our photo collections go to www.flickr.com/photos/hobsonandporter/collections. You can also find all our customer testimonials on Scribd

Be2camp@WorkingBuildings2009

Martin Brown of Fairsnape will be showcasing some of the recent work that H&P have been carrying out using Web2.0 applications at the Be2camp event in London. The Be2camp unconference event in London is running over two days at London's Olympia exhibition halls on 7-8 October 2009. This unconference is being held in parallel with the UBM's three WorkingBuildings shows:

• Energy Solutions Expo
• M&E: The Building Services Event
• Total Workplace Management: the FM & Estates Event

Over the last few months H&P has been working with Fairsnape and Provesta to develop and roll out a number of Web2.0 and social media applications. These are all aimed at enabling effective communication and collaboration between H&P, its staff, customers and supply chain.

Praise from on high

Another unsolicited letter of thanks received, this time from John Stone, the deputy head at Archbishop Holgate's School in York where we have just finished the new £3.6m Learning Centre. Our site manager Louis Bradley has received 10 out of 10 for customer satisfaction on his last three schools projects, and it looks like he's heading for another good score. He's going to be difficult to live with! Only joking Louis - congratulations to to Mark Goodwin, Andy Roberts and yourself for another top quality piece of work.

Decent Homes PH4 confirmed

Just returned from Selby, where we were holding an open day to allow tenants to select their kitchen styles and find out about the works that will be taking place over the next few months. We'll be working on around 130 properties. It was good to hear such great feedback from tenants and the council on the works we have completed. Of around 60 satisfaction surveys returned so far, we've got a 100% record, will all tenants saying they were either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with our performance.

Tender prices drop sharply in Q1

The latest Tender Price Index from the Building Cost Information Service shows that the price of new construction work fell by 4.9 per cent in the first quarter of this year. New orders fell 19 per cent in the first quarter of the year, and were 38 per cent lower than the same period a year earlier. Materials costs rose 4 per cent between January and March, compared with 7.7 percent in the previous quarter, and wage rates remained constant at 4.9 per cent. The BCIS expects tenders will fall another 6.1 percent over the coming year, with a slight rise expected by 2011 of 0.5 percent.

Blogs, Twitter, social networking: your new business tools

Our efforts to increase collaboration through the use of social media has been picked up by Construction Magazine, and is featured in the current issue http://tr.im/rdR2

Online Inductions

Just returned from a meeting with Technophobia in Sheffield, discussing our ideas for delivering online inductions and toolbox talks. Watch this space!

Top marks for the Lifeline Centre

The client survey results are now in for the new Lifeline Centre at Driffield. East Riding Council’s project manager awarded us the maximum 10 score for Product, Service, and Overall satisfaction. Well done to all the team!

 

 

Northern Dioceses

We've just received the framework documents for the Northern Dioceses framework. This will involve schools projects, and with a bit of luck we should see some of these coming through in the Autumn. The six Dioceses involved are Carlisle, Blackburn, Manchester, Chester, Liverpool and York. The intent will be for the School Governors under each Diocese to call upon the Main Contractors for individual projects to submit a best value proposition via a mini-competition with the successful appointment being on the basis of the criteria contained within the enquiry. The framework is worth arounf £40m in total

Woobius collaboration hub

Thanks to Martin at Fairsnape for letting us know about Woobius, the online collaboartion hub designed for architects and engineers that provides a simple way of file sharing. If anyone out there has looked at it or used it let us know