The last month has been a very busy one, with the National Infrastructure commission making major recommendations and chancellor George Osborne announcing funds for new projects.
Residential
The government has announced that one in every five new homes built on developments of ten or more properties must be a starter home.
A range of new property projects have got underway or have made significant progress. These include the selection of Kier Living as the builder for a new 260-home project in the Hengrove Park area of Bristol, the announcement of a joint venture between builder Barratt and housing association Hyde Group to develop 318 new homes in Harrow, and the development of the site of the former Wolverhampton Royal Hospital as new housing, after Tesco sold it to the Homes and Communities Agency.
Elsewhere, an £86 million central government guaranteed loan has enabled work to start on the 3,000-home Countesswells site project in Aberdeen, plans have been unveiled for a new 45,000-home garden city spread across four sites in the Black Country, and an investment vehicle headed by former footballer Rio Ferdinand is to revive a run-down part of Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire.
Commercial
Galliford Try has won a £12 million contract to build a new Hilton Hotel at Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground.
The development will replace the Old Trafford Lodge, which is being demolished, and will provide four-star accommodation in 150 rooms. From the outside, it will resemble the Point, the conference and executive facility that stands on the other side of the old pavilion.
Once built, the hotel will compete the redevelopment of the famous international cricket ground.
A few miles away, Manchester Airport has been given planning permission for a £1 billion transformation. This will include 60 changes, the largest being the demolition of the present Terminal 1 and the expansion of Terminal 2. Terminal 3 will be upgraded and a new clearance facility for those flying to the US will be added.
Warehouse building in the UK could be a major boom sector in the coming years. A report by property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton has said that at current rates of warehouse construction, demand for such space will exceed supply by 25 million sq ft within five years due to the growth of e-commerce, unless there is a rapid increase in the number being built.
Infrastructure
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has been very busy making recommendations in two new reports.
It said preparation for Crossrail 2 should begin immediately, with head of the body Lord Adonis stating that with London set to become a "megacity" of over ten million people by the 2030s, it was vital that it was not overly congested. Establishing a second Crossrail link is vital for this, he argued. Londoners would have to meet a "fair share" of the cost, but benefits would include facilitating the construction of 200,000 new homes.
The NIC then recommended more investment in the 'Northern Powerhouse' area, noting that a key issue was the poor level of trans-Pennine connectivity. He said the first step should be the electrification of rail services between Manchester and Leeds, which will make them faster, followed by the development of HS3. He also called for the M62 motorway to be widened. A further project will explore the idea of building a road tunnel under the Peak District to provide a fast and simple link between Manchester and Sheffield.
Elsewhere, work is getting underway to revamp the Liverpool city region's rail network and Bradford's Forster Square station is set for a major upgrade.
Oil and gas
The oil and gas sector is continuing to struggle, but could benefit from Budget help provided by chancellor George Osborne.
Mr Osborne announced new tax breaks to help the sector, including a halving of the supplementary charge on oil and gas from 20 per cent to ten per cent. He also announced he was "effectively abolishing" petroleum revenue tax.
Both measures have been backdated to January 1st to provide more help to the industry.
Mr Osborne used his speech to attack the Scottish Nationalists, noting that if the independence referendum had brought a 'yes' vote, Scotland would be facing the problems of a struggling oil and gas sector on its own.
