Homes and infrastructure get Autumn Statement boost
Nov 1, 2016 |NBS |2 Minute Read
November 2016
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has delivered his first Autumn Statement with an emphasis on 'high-value investment' in infrastructure and housing with the aim of boosting construction.
A new National Productivity Investment Fund will oversee a spend of £23bn over the next five years in a bid to improve UK productivity as we negotiate the terms of leaving the European Union.
The Chancellor announced a new £2.3bn housing infrastructure fund will see up to 1000,000 new homes built in areas of high demand. The government has also committed to funding 40,000 additional 'affordable' homes to the tune of £1.4bn. Acknowledging that, for many, home ownership remains out of reach, the Chancellor said the government will soon publish a white paper looking at options for meeting this 'urgent challenge'.
The chancellor also pledged £3.15bn to London as “its share of national affordable housing funding” to deliver 90,000 new homes.
Going forward, government will commit to spending between 1% and 1.2% of GDP from 2020 on economic infrastructure. By comparison, Mr Hammond said it was spending 0.8% now.
The chancellor also pledged £1.1bn to upgrade the local transport network in England, with another £220m allocated to alleviating traffic trouble spots and an extra £450m in funding to trial digital signalling on the railways. Another £1.8bn from the Local Growth Fund will also be given to English regions to fund infrastructure upgrades. A strategy to address the gap between the productivity of our capital and other cities will be published soon.
£15bn will be borrowed for infrastructure investment with the aim of balancing the books by the end of this parliament jettisoned in favour of a return to surplus some time in the next parliament.
Hammond stressed the importance of private sector investment in infrastructure and announced he has extended the UK guarantees scheme, which underpins private investment in infrastructure, to 2026.
Stefan Mordue introduces a playful take on Dmitri Mendeleev's classic table of elements in this introduction to the Periodic Table of BIM, published in the National BIM Report 2016.
In this, a companion study to the NBS National BIM report, we take an international view of BIM with a detailed exploration of five countries, each at different stages of BIM maturity – with data from the UK, Canada, Denmark, Japan and the Czech Republic.
The National BIM Report 2016 is the sixth study into UK adoption and awareness of Building Information Modelling (BIM). Download the full, free report including full summary findings and expert insight and analysis.
Visqueen supports one of the first Gateway 2 approvals under the Building Safety Act
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NBS and BDP join forces to improve generic carbon data in construction
Today, NBS (part of Hubexo), the platform for connected construction information, announces a long-term strategic partnership with BDP, a major global multidisciplinary practice of architects, designers, engineers and urbanists. The partnership recognises BDP's integral role in the development of NBS LCA, a new life-cycle carbon assessment platform providing professionals with high-quality, reliable and easy-to-use carbon data to ensure accurate tracking as construction projects evolve. BDP's primary contribution to NBS LCA has been the development of more than 1,300 pre-calculated generic assemblies, covering the most commonly used building fabric elements alongside key concrete and steel structural elements. These assemblies provide whole-element carbon data, giving designers consistent, UK-relevant carbon benchmarks from the earliest stages of project design. Users can easily and instantly apply carbon rates to a range of pre-configured common building elements, including walls, floors, and roofs. Developed by BDP and NBS, the assemblies remove the need for designers to manually build up material layers or calculate individual components at the concept stage. This saves significant time and effort, enabling proportionate and responsible carbon evaluation early in the design process, when decisions have the greatest impact on a project's overall carbon footprint. BDP also participated in collaborative workshops that directly informed the development of NBS LCA, helping to shape a tool that is practical, accessible and aligned with real-world UK construction workflows. Dr Lee Jones, Head of Sustainability at Hubexo, said: “BDP's contribution to NBS LCA has been invaluable. Their depth of project experience and technical knowledge has directly shaped the generic assemblies at the heart of the platform. These assemblies give designers a reliable, UK-relevant starting point for carbon assessment, without the burden of building everything from scratch. This is exactly the kind of collaboration that moves the industry forward, and we're proud to be working with BDP on a long-term basis.” Julia Yao, Associate, Sustainability Consultant at BDP, said: “Carbon assessment needs to be embedded in design from day one, not bolted on at the end. Working with NBS to develop its LCA product has been a genuine opportunity to put that principle into practice. The generic assemblies we developed draw on real project data and are designed to give designers meaningful, actionable carbon information at the concept stage. We're delighted to see them at the core of a platform that will be used across the industry.” With the UK Government outlining its commitment to responsible carbon reporting through its Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan, professionals need reliable, easy-to-use tools to assess and report embodied carbon. NBS LCA addresses this need by integrating carbon calculations with live design work, drawing on structured data from Circular Ecology's ICE Database and more than 12,500 verified, specification-ready construction products with Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) from NBS Source and ECO Portal. Over the coming months, NBS and BDP will continue to develop their partnership, with a shared commitment to improving the quality and accessibility of carbon data for construction professionals across the UK. NBS LCA is available now, with flexible subscriptions designed for all professionals. For more information, visit the website here.