Editorial

Citation

Shelbourn, D.M. (2010), "Editorial", Structural Survey, Vol. 28 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ss.2010.11028caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Structural Survey, Volume 28, Issue 3

In the third issue of volume 28 I am drawn to discussing the upcoming election here in the UK with some reluctance. In all honesty I am not a political follower but there are issues and implications for the property industry and those that use the services of it.

If we look at the manifestos of the parties the main battle ground – in a property sense – seems to centre on the issue of stamp duty for first-time buyers.

If we look at the Conservatives pledge “… we want to create a property-owning democracy where everyone has the chance to own their own home. That is why we will permanently raise the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first-time buyers, meaning nine out of ten of them will pay no tax on their first home purchase.” The existing Labour Government says “… we will exempt purchases below £250,000 from stamp duty for the next two years, benefiting more than nine out of ten first-time buyers. This will be paid for by increasing stamp duty to five per cent for homes worth more than £1 million.” The Liberal Democrats have made no real claims in their manifesto but they do mention it in a tax avoidance quote “… tackling tax avoidance and evasion, with new powers for HM Revenue & Customs and a law to ensure properties can’t avoid stamp duty if they are put into an offshore trust.”

Plaid Cymru (the national party for Wales) “… understands the difficulties that first-time buyers face in getting onto the first rung of the housing ladder. To address this, Plaid calls for a moratorium on stamp duty for first-time buyers.” The Scottish National Party has no direct mention of stamp duty in their manifesto, but they do say “… we are directly supporting jobs in local communities through record investment in social housing, including the first substantial investment in council housing for decades. Our new initiative, the National Housing Trust, has the potential to provide thousands of new affordable homes to rent.”

The UK Independent Party says in its manifesto “… UKIP will review the size and application of Stamp Duty over time and would desire cuts in it.” The Green party (for England and Wales) has no specific policy on stamp duty but they do include these statements “… there are about one million empty homes. Halve this number through empty property use orders” and “… set building regulations to require excellent energy standards on a points-based system, which will cover embodied energy of building materials, energy used in construction, energy consumption in use, on-site energy generation and use of heat distribution networks.”

So what does all this mean?

Personally, I believe they are all trying to stimulate the market for first-time buyers but it is unclear from many of the parties quotes how they are likely to achieve this. There is also the issue of what constitutes a “first-time buyer” and how they are defined. Perhaps the parties should apply their policies across all house purchases. Whatever the outcome on 6 May 2010, I am sure the first-time buyer may get some benefit from whoever walks through the doors of number 10 Downing Street.

On a lighter note, perhaps one of the most controversial (or entertaining) policies published by a political party comes from the UK Independent Party. In its policy document it states “… as a first step, UKIP will introduce a process where brutal, ugly or poorly constructed buildings can be listed for demolition, to be named ‘X Listing’ as suggested by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Once a building is so listed, a compulsory Demolition or Re-design fund will be established with contributions from the building owners increasing exponentially to incentivise replacement.” A radical policy indeed …

Now to this issue and its contents

In this issue we have five papers all contributing to the debate of building pathology and refurbishment. The first paper, by Alan Forster, is part two of two articles where he discusses building conservation philosophy for masonry repair, concentrating on the principles involved. It describes what is meant by the principles and the importance of realising that when repairs to historic buildings are carried out they must conform to a building conservation philosophy, or an ethical and principle based evaluation. It uses practical examples to illustrate the concepts to be considered.

The second paper in this issue is entitled “Preventive measures for mitigating fire risks in big box retail facilities” from a regular contributor to the journal – Mohammad Hassanain. The paper investigates a set of preventative measures required for mitigating fire risks in big box retail facilities. It describes the potential sources of ignition, the hazardous situations commonly found in these facilities, and the challenges associated with reducing such hazards. The main findings from the paper indicate that retail facilities are amongst the most challenging occupancies from a fire protection perspective. It is just as difficult for fire departments to tackle a fire in such a facility as it is for a fire to be suppressed by a fixed solution. An important feature highlighted in the paper is the importance of building management staff and their role in preventing and tackling fires in these types of facility.

The third paper in this issue comes from researchers in Brazil. The paper, by Ana Paula Larocca, Ricardo Ernesto Schaal and Edvaldo Simoes de Fonseca Jr, describes experiments and case studies to enable more accurate measuring and recording of oscillations in buildings and their structures. It uses a methodology based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and adaptive filtering techniques on the phase residuals computed through the double difference adjusted by the third order polynomial. Although this sounds very complicated – and I have no doubt it is – the paper uses case studies of a building and a bridge to showcase this improved technique, and its ability to detect oscillations at the millimetre level of accuracy.

The penultimate paper comes from Simon Siggelsten and Stefan Olander in Sweden. Their paper entitled “Individual heat metering and charging of multi-dwelling residential housing” describes research into residents’ attitudes to individual heat metering and charging systems of multi-family dwellings in residential properties. Evaluations of tenants’ perceptions and how they may effect the continued expansion of such systems is described. The findings show a certain degree of dissatisfaction from the tenants with the application of the described systems under discussion. Other key findings include the need for improvements in the information given to tenants and a need to develop fairer systems of metering and charging for tenants in their buildings.

The final paper in this issue comes from colleagues at Delft University in the Netherlands. Henk-Jan van Mossel and Sylvia Jansen’s paper entitled “Maintenance services in social housing: what do residents find important?” The aim of the paper is to understand which services are essential to tenants and housing associations in maintenance policy and purchasing; this paper specifically reports on the results from a survey conducted with 6,000 tenants in the Netherlands. The results showed that the maintenance of heating and water systems, hinges and locks to windows and external doors are areas where tenants felt priority should be given. If the goal of the building owner is to increase customer satisfaction the maintenance of exterior paintwork and bathrooms should be the highest priority.

Once again the broad aspects of building pathology and refurbishment is witnessed in the variety of papers on show. We have the usual internet review, recent publications and newsbriefs in the issue too.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue.

Dr Mark Shelbourn