Fri 7 Dec 2007
December
The British Cement Association (BCA) is making good progress towards reducing its carbon footprint, it has announced.Since 1990, UK cement manufacturers have reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by 29 per cent, says the group, which put together a series of initiatives several years ago to meet its sustainable development objectives. Cement manufacture currently accounts for almost two per cent of the UK's total carbon emissions, the BCA stresses, a far lower figure than that created by aviation and shipping.
"Contrary to a recent Guardian report, the UK cement industry is not an obstacle to a low-carbon economy," said Mike Gilbert, the BCA's chief executive. Cement is an essential and virtually irreplaceable building material. It is the principal ingredient in concrete, upon which we depend to build and maintain our homes, schools, offices, shops, hospitals, roads and transport infrastructure, water, energy utilities and flood defences. We're tackling reducing our environmental impact in a number of ways, including replacing primary raw materials and fossil fuels by processing wastes and by-products from other industries into alternative raw materials, as well as investing in modern kilns and energy-efficient technology. In 2006 alone, we used over a million tonnes of waste which would otherwise have gone to landfill or for incineration."
The cement industry has an annual turnover of £775 million, and employs 3,500 people directly, with a further 15,000 jobs depending on its operations.
www.cementindustry.co.uk
Barratt Homes is working with Zurich to provide new buyers with the Zurich Property Deposit Guarantee.
Provided through the XBond Company, this new guarantee aims to enable homebuyers to buy a property by providing surety for the required deposit. Allowing buyers to delay paying a cash deposit until the property purchase is completed with the intention of speeding up the process, purchasers instead pay a guarantee fee, which aims to be cheaper than the cost of borrowing on the high street.
The XBond Company deals with purchasers, while Zurich carries out all the necessary credit checks to ensure all guaranteed users meet or exceed the credit requirements, which confirm that the applicant can afford to fund the required deposit upon completion of the property purchase.
"XBond was set up to provide innovative financial solutions to help buyers and owners of property," explained Paul Gratton, XBond's executive chairman. "The team wanted to find a way to improve the buying process at a time when speeding up the house buying process and increasing the availability and affordability of new homes has become a political issue."
"Barratt Developments is delighted to be the first UK housebuilder to reach an agreement with Zurich," added Clive Fenton, executive chairman of Barratt South Region. "We believe this will make the house buying process simpler and easier."
www.zurich.com
www.xbond.com
Terca and Koramic have teamed up to offer their website users a tool that will allow them to build their dream home online.
Using computer-generated images of houses, Dreamhouse Builder allows users to customise a property using Koramic clay roof tiles and Terca clay-facing bricks. Users can choose from a range of mortar colours and textures to see how varying shades will affect the overall look of the property's brickwork. The firm's programme also provides ten different styles of house and a day and night-time view facility.
"This software will help our customers to visualise how our products will look on particular types and styles of properties," said Richard Brown, Terca's marketing manager. "Detailed product information on both our bricks and roof tiles can also be viewed and printed for future reference."
www.wienerberger.co.uk
Persimmon Homes has signed up with Rocksure Systems to provider its employees with Peoplesafe, a technically advanced lone worker safety device to protect its staff from verbal and physical abuse.
Following trials, Persimmon has now issued all its lone workers in North Yorkshire with a Peoplesafe alarm. Resembling an ID holder, the product is packaged with the latest mobile phone technology, and enables employees to raise the alarm covertly if necessary, while a third party can also listen in and record the event's dialogue, whatever the distance. The device can also pinpoint a worker's location using GSM/LBS technology.
Users press an amber alert button to notify their employer when they know they are entering a potentially hazardous situation. Should they have cause to press the red alert, operators at Rocksure's remote monitoring centre will retrieve the information on their locality, listen in on the line to what is happening and co-ordinates the appropriate emergency support - involving the police if necessary.
David Smith, Persimmon's sales director in North Yorkshire, said he was keen to ensure his team was the first to use Peoplesafe: "Unfortunately, our staff have had to face a wide range of serious threats in the past, including verbal abuse, physical abuse, intimidating behaviour and robbery. Our employees are at risk each time they show a prospective buyer around our new properties as they are on their own and out of sight. Many of our sales staff are female and the risks are obvious."
www.rocksure.co.uk
Gerrards Cross-based developer Belvedere is fitting all garages in its new developments with GarageTek UK's flooring, while giving new buyers the option to add the firm's garage storage walls, shelving and cupboards according to their needs.
GarageTek designs and installs garage solutions using its bespoke TekPanel material, aiming first and foremost to remove garage clutter from floors and using walls to hang cabinets, shelving and racks. The ceiling can be used to store ladders and bikes to free up more space around the walls.
"With developers under pressure to increase housing density and land at a premium, particularly in the south-east, the garage is decreasing in size to make way for more living space," explains Alastair Broom, managing director of GarageTek UK. "Many of today's developers use the walls of a garage to mount boilers and water tanks, which could go elsewhere with careful planning, leaving room to store household items, equipment and goods in cupboards on the walls."
"We are always looking at clever ways of maximising space and creating storage solutions," adds Keith de Costa, Belvedere's managing director. "This system is ideal because it's very flexible, clean and simple. I recently had my own garage refurbished by GarageTek, and am extremely pleased with the results."
www.garagetek.com
Crest Nicholson and Westcity have installed a residents' gym supplied by Raw Corporate Health (RCH) in its Whitelands Park development in Putney, west London.
The gym is located in the site's Grade II listed Sir Giles Gilbert Scott building, a former teacher training college built in the 1930s. Refurbished by Westcity, the block now features 101 flats and houses.
RCH manages the gym, delivering information to the estate management company when required, while all gym and therapy staff are managed by the firm to keep its standards high. The company employs trainers to conduct all gym inductions and personal training sessions, and also sends monthly newsletters to residents with health information and gym news to keep users up to date on all services and offers.
"Westcity chose RCH as the gym design and management company due to their high level of service and excellent track record," Simon Isdell-Carpenter, Westcity's sales and marketing director, told Show House. "They delivered the gym on budget in three weeks for our press launch, and were also involved in our PR. The gym is an integral part of the development in creating a sense of community, and was a great sales tool for us as a developer."
www.rawfitness.co.uk/rawcorp
Connells has moved its corporate sales department to larger premises to accommodate its expanding workforce.
Connells Corporate Sales, which has managed and sold over 55,000 properties on behalf of banks, building societies and new homes developers, has taken on several new clients over the last few months, says David Peterson, the firm's divisional operations director. "Significant business expansion has seen our headcount more than double over the past 12 months to meet the demand for existing and new clients. We'd simply outgrown our space in Cumbria House [Leighton Buzzard], but fortunately we were able to secure new offices for our 45 staff members just across the road. Our new premises will give us the capacity to increase our headcount further and, with all areas of our business continuing to expand, we are actively recruiting more staff."
Connells' corporate sales branch, established in 1991, aims to offer users a one-stop property management service, dealing with projects from initial instruction, valuation and marketing through to sale and contracts exchange.
www.connells.co.uk
The Kohler Group has won a contract to kit out bathrooms in Ikea's flatpack BoKlok development in Gateshead.
The first development of its kind in the UK, BoKlok housing (which translates as 'smart living') was developed by Ikea with construction firm Skanska in Scandinavia, and will now form the basis for the firm's St James Village project, which will be marketed by property company Live Smart @ Home.
"We were looking to partner up with suppliers who can offer sleek and attractive products," said Alan Prole, managing director of Live Smart @ Home. "Kohler is an ideal choice for the bathrooms, as we're aiming to offer a designer look, while remaining within a reasonable budget."
"The products chosen by Live Smart @ Home provide a contemporary and fitted bathroom look, which is not typical of low-cost housing," said Gill Few, Kohler's channel manager. "Our Patio semi-recessed basin and back-to-wall WCs create a sleek look in the interior and incorporate storage, while our Dolphin basic monoblocs and wall-mounted bath-shower mixers are highly ergonomic and contemporary."
"We're very excited about bringing the BoKlok house to Gateshead," Prole concluded. "With our plans to roll out the concept throughout the UK, we're delighted to have Kohler on board."
First published in Show House Magazine December 2007.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
Posted by Show House
in Garage Tek, Kohler, Persimmon Homes, Raw Corporate Health, Rocksure Systems, Supplier News on Fri 7 Dec 2007
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