Prop-arazzi

Leading Northern Ireland firm McCue Fit-Out has scooped both the coveted Retail Week ‘Store Fit-Out Company of the Year’ Award for its overall performance and the individual ‘Shopfitting Excellence’ Award, for its work with client Urban Outfitters at its Liverpool store.

The company which is renowned for its work with top brands such as Hamleys Toy Store, DW Sports Fitness, Starbucks and many others was awarded the accolades at a glittering ceremony held earlier this week at London’s Hilton Hotel, Park Lane. This follows on from the success achieved in May, when the company was awarded ‘Overall Winner’ of the Design Partnership Award, by the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS).

The Retail Week Interior Awards showcase the best UK retail interiors and shop fitting companies for their excellence and innovation and attracts the best in the retail store design industry.

Les McCracken, Managing Director of McCue Fit-Out said today:

“We are currently working on a number of projects across the UK bringing to life the innovative cutting edge store environments which the various brands we work with demand.

The Liverpool project for which we won the ‘shop fitting excellence award’ was our first Urban Outfitters store in GB and follows their distinctive brand image whilst drawing upon elements synonymous to Liverpool such as the Liver Bird and the Warehouse Docks, both of which allowed us the opportunity to showcase our interior fit-out management and specialist joinery skills, within what was at the time, Europe’s largest downtown regeneration project.

Delivering eye catching work is something we put a premium on and our dedication to excellence in every project has well and truly paid off, as recognised by our success in these national industry awards, of which we are very proud.”

John Ryan, Stores Editor, Retail Week said today:

“The Awards proved to be a fantastic night, bringing together over 650 retail professionals, making it the biggest year in the history of the awards.
Competition was fierce as entries this year exceeded expectations in terms of quality and quantity. Big winners on the night included Checkland Kindleysides and McCue Interior Fit-Out Solutions”.

SDLP finance spokesperson Declan O’Loan MLA has called for a long-term joint approach by all parties to the issue of social housing. Speaking ahead of the motion in the Assembly today (Tuesday), Mr O’Loan said:

He said: “This issue is too important for the arguments that we have seen. There are 40,000 applicants on the waiting list, half of those being in urgent housing need. In one year, 9,000 households are deemed homeless.

“Over the next two years, there will be funding deficit of £200million. Over the 10 year Investment Strategy to 2018, that shortfall will be £1billion. We will be addressing that against a background of reduced public expenditure.

“That is a stark challenge for the Assembly. It will not be resolved by criticising each other. We need a frank debate and recognition that this is a shared problem. The task is to put social housing on a sound long-term footing.

“The Housing Council has presented a good starting point in its document ‘Bridging the Gaps’. It proposes new thinking on developer contributions in the medium term, on new governance arrangements for the Housing Executive and permitting it to borrow, and enhancing the role of the private rented sector. The SDLP has proposed the restructuring of Housing Executive debt and the sale and leaseback of the Housing Executive headquarters. All of these ideas and more need to be debated.

“In the short term, more public investment should go into social housing. That will do more than anything else to counter the recession. House building is labour intensive, and for every ten jobs created directly, another seven will be generated elsewhere in the economy.”

More than two square kilometres of land in Belfast, much of it publicly owned, could be used to regenerate and reconnect communities within the inner and central city.

According to the newly-launched Forum for an Alternative Belfast, a ‘think tank’ which is aiming to create a strong vision for a new Belfast, the land is still lying idle after more than a decade of a construction boom which saw a lot of hastily-planned, profit-focussed development.

“Years of bad or mediocre redevelopment have continued to isolate large swathes of the city, creating ugly dead facades and leaving it largely empty at night,” said Belfast Forum co-director Mark Hackett.

“It’s hard to believe that an area the size of 500 football pitches is not being more productively used given that it is all located within a two kilometre walk of the city centre. This important, valuable land could be better-used to make Belfast a more vibrant, cosmopolitan city that isn’t disjointed by ad-hoc development.”

“We want to find out exactly how many people could be living within one and a half miles of the City Hall, however, our preliminary study indicates in excess of 20,000 extra people would comfortably be housed in the fractured inner city. With that comes the challenge of making new schools, parks and connecting with existing communities in an equitable manner – and doing so with development of enduring built quality” he added.

The Forum is bringing more than 70 of Belfast’s leading architects, engineers, urban planners, arts experts, community leaders together in a four-day ‘summer school’ to develop workable ideas to transform the city.

The ‘Fill Up Belfast’ Project runs from 10am to 10pm, Monday 17 August until Friday 21 August at the David Keir Building in Queen’s University, with evening discussion sessions open from 5.30pm for those attending after work.

“This is an intensive, voluntary effort by over 70 members to show civic leadership in the city,” said Mark. “The five-day ‘think tank’ will examine what would happen if we stopped leaving the development of our city to chance and instead started to plan a common vision for how we see ourselves in 2020. We want everyone to take part in the wider discussions.”

“Belfast is our city; it’s our environment, and it’s essential that we create and develop a place that’s accessible, connected and safe. It should be a good place to live in and a good place to invest in. This is your chance to affect the future of your city.”

Greater weight will be given in the future, where appropriate, to the economic consideration of planning proposals, Environment Minister Sammy Wilson confirmed today.

In a statement to the Assembly, the Minister told MLAs he had decided to clarify the situation to ensure planners could play a full and positive role in assisting economic recovery.

Mr Wilson explained: “I want to give decision makers the confidence and support to make judgements which will give greater weight to economic considerations wherever it is appropriate to do so.

“I want to give clarity and leave nobody in any doubt about how to deal with economic considerations.

“Full account shall be taken of the economic aspects of a planning proposal, including the wider benefits to the regional or local economy, alongside social and environmental aspects.

“Where the economic benefits of a proposal are significant then substantial weight should be afforded to them.”

The Minister said planners often faced competing interests when assessing development proposals and had to balance important social, economic and environmental considerations.

He told MLA’s the weight given to these aspects was a matter of judgement for the decision maker and would vary with each planning application.

Mr Wilson insisted: “The purpose of this statement is to provide certainty and give guidance so that the planning system can play a positive role in encouraging investment and kickstarting regeneration.”

The Minister said in order to do this, it was essential planners had all the relevant information about development proposals at their disposal.

He urged everyone involved in the planning process including developers, agents and public representatives to ensure all information about the economic benefits was supplied at the outset.

Mr Wilson said the Planning Service had already introduced a number of measures to facilitate economic growth.

These included:

•  The creation of two strategic project teams within Planning Service headquarters to handle large scale investment proposals;
•  The rollout of a streamlined consultation scheme to speed up the processing of non-contentious planning applications across all council areas. This had resulted in approvals now taking 24 working days on average to issue.

In addition, the Minister said he was urging developers to engage with local communities before submitting an application.

He said: “Too often it is only after an application is submitted that people hear what is proposed. Often they object to issues that could have been resolved if the proposal had been discussed beforehand.”

The Minister added a number of planning policy statements would also facilitate economic development including the revised and updated PPS4, draft PPS21 which contains policies for economic development in the countryside including farm diversification, draft PPS18 on renewable energy and draft PPS16 which will set out the policy for tourism facilities and accommodation.

The advent of the mini budget today in the south has also rung the death knell for up to 5 junior ministerial posts. 20 ministers will be reduced to 15 later this month. The southern press report that the exchequer will save up to €3 million euros. Seriously, €3million,  thats all.  As they say here, it wouldn’t fill a gap in your tooth never mind polyfil another fissure in the celtic leopard, or whatever the hell it is called nowadays.

The OFT intends to launch a market study into home buying and selling, looking at traditional estate agency models and alternative ways of buying and selling homes, it has announced.
The OFT proposes that the market study should take a comprehensive look at home buying and selling in terms of:

1. competition on price and quality between service providers
2. the prospects for new entry by, in particular, internet property retailers
3. extent to which consumer interests are protected by the existing regulatory framework

The long anticipated Planning Bill is due for its Third Reading in the House of Lords this evening. The Bill is highly controversial as it is seen by NGOs and environmentalists as a mechanism for central Government to force through locally unpopular schemes such as new roads, airports and coal and nuclear power stations, thereby reducing local democratic input into the planning process. The Government’s objective is to ensure that schemes of major national strategic importance are not delayed for many years by local planning processes and inquiries, or obstructed by hostile local authorities.

Key points include:

ØThe establishment of an Infrastructure Planning Commission that has the power to determine major applications relating to;

-       Energy – including generating stations, electric lines, underground gas storage facilities, LNG facilities,  gas transporter pipe-lines and other pipe lines.

-       Transport – including highways, airports, harbour facilities, railways and rail freight interchanges.

-       Water – including dams and reservoirs and the transfer of water resources.

-       Waste water – including treatment plants.

-       Waste – including hazardous waste facilities.

Ø  Under the act development consent will be required for development which are or form part of a nationally significant infrastructure project.

Ø  If development consent is required from the Commission then other forms of consent such as regular planning permission, and consent under section 8 (1), (2) or (3) and section 74 (1) of the Listed Buildings Act are no longer required.

Ø  The Secretary of State can refer an application made to a local authority to the Commission if they deem it necessary and can direct the local authority to take no further action towards consent for the development themselves.

Ø  The applicant must prepare a statement that sets out the consultation programme that they are going to undertake throughout the pre-application process. Each local authority in the development area must be consulted on what should be in the statement. In short – the applicant and local authorities must agree who should be consulted, when and how before the consultation takes place.

Ø  The Bill states that must ‘have regard’ to any relevant responses from the consultation process that are received within the consultation period - which can be no less than 28 days from the day after the consultee was notified of the development proposals. Relevant responses are from any person responding to consultation or publicity of the development.

Ø  The Chair of the Commission can decide whether an application is to be handled by a panel or by a single commissioner. In the event of a panel the Chair of the Commission must appoint three or more members of the commission to form the panel.

Ø  The decision of the Commission can be challenged in court if judicial review proceedings are brought by a claim made up to six weeks after the decision has been made.

According to Nationwide this morning at 7am, house prices in NI have dropped 29.8% in the past year. Check out the NI figures below from the housepricecrash website on the reduction of the average house price:  Q2 2007 - £225,447 + £21,632 + 10.6% / Q3 2007 - £227,970 + £2,523 + 1.1% / Q4 2007 - £224,816 - £3,154 - 1.4% / Q1 2008 - £196,892 - £27,924 - 12.4% / Q2 2008 - £183,476 - £13,416 - 6.8% / Q3 2008 - £159970 - £23,506 - 12.8%

Reshuffle chatter suggests that Jon Cruddas MP is to replace Caroline Flint MP as Minister of State for Housing?….

 Some members of the Construction and Property Group Steering Committee

Members of the Construction and Property Group at the Cookstown Meeting

MLAs Patsy McGlone, Jim Wells and Alistair McDonnell

Group spokesperson Brendan Cunnane addresses the meeting