Waste survey delays publication - Housebuilder to focus on new methods - MP slams 'unfair' levy on small firms

The results of the Environment Agency's survey of construction and demolition waste that was launched in February have had to be postponed until the autumn because of lack of robust data.

The Agency admitted that it had to go back to the organisations it approached for more detailed information to produce useful statistics. Results will be available in September.

Flagged as the largest ever survey of construction and demolition waste in England and Wales, the investigation was to have been part of a national 'waste arising' survey. Three distinct surveys were announced covering all known operators of crushers, all licensed landfills, and all registered and exempt sites that take construction and demolition waste or soil.

The Symonds Group is carrying out the survey and the results will be published as part of the strategic waste management assessments published in September. by John Leitch



Housebuilder Countryside has reduced its traditionally-built houses to 68% of the group's total output and the figure is set to drop to 60% next year as the company increasingly focuses on alternative methods of building.

Speaking on Monday (22 May) chief executive Graham Cherry said that timber-frame properties now account for 22% of Countryside's output.

Countryside's latest interim results - six months to 31 March 2000 - show turnover 22% higher at £134m with pre-tax profit up by over a third at £10.3m. The group's operating margin from speculative housebuilding was 12.1%.

Graham Cherry, son of chairman Alan, pointed out that a few sites are still being worked out on land bought at expensive prices in the late 1980s.

In spite of this drag on the overall figure, Countryside's margin ran to 13.5%.

"We are trying to reduce our dependency on skilled labour by prefabrication," said Cherry. He said that Government pressure to build at high density and the need for high architectural standards, meant that some aspects of prefabrication were not feasible.

Countryside, a top 20 UK housebuilder, plans to install its first prefabricated bathroom pods in properties in the autumn. Exclusive by Glenda Thisdell



The Construction Industry Training Board levy has been branded an injustice by a Labour MP and also by a Somerset contractor.

Martin Linton MP told the House of Commons that the CITB levy is an unfair burden on smaller specialist firms while many larger firms escape charge.

Linton said a "hard" flooring company in his constituency, Wright Flooring, pays about £3,300 a year on a turnover of about £500,000. "The levy is a very small proportion of the wage bill, but a much higher proportion of the profits. If, for example, the company's profit margin is only about 5%, that comes to about £30,000 a year." This would be equivalent to over 10% of the firm's profit.

Linton said the company's owner, Brian Wright, had complained that his competitors did not pay as they tended to be carpet-laying firms and were classified as part of the furniture industry thereby avoiding the levy - even though their hard flooring workload was often greater than Wright's.

In another case, Gordon Smith of Gordon Smith Surfacing in Somerset told CJ that he is facing a £47,000-plus bill for three-years' levy. Smith said: "I'm very unhappy about paying when others don't. It is not a level playing field. I have always paid and up to three years ago, it was £3,500 a year."

Smith said the £47,000 bill was an accumulation of £14,000 for 1997, £12,000 for 1998 and an estimate by CITB of £21,000 for 1999.

Smith said: "I can't pay that sort of money. The estimate is more than I make net profit in a year." Last year, the firm's profit was £16,000.

Linton, MP for Battersea, told CJ that the CITB was aware of other specialist groups which claimed similar hardship. He said: "I think the basic problem is the 'mainly rule' (whereby firms can claim that their main activity lies outside construction). But if it was scrapped, then all sorts of firms which don't pay the levy might have to pay and we don't want to bring in a huge number of firms. We want to tackle the anomaly."

The CITB has some 60,000 firms on its register, yet Government figures suggest that there are about 140,000 firms in construction.