Property developers could be hit hard by the new government’s proposed cuts to the funding for social housing, warned an industry expert this week.

Writing in Property Mentor, market analyst Peter Franklin said that the changes could lead to scores of affordable property construction projects “grinding to a halt” throughout 2010-11.

Proposed changes to the planning system will also make future developments more difficult, Mr Franklin said.

He cited figures published by the National Housing Federation, which said that cuts to social housing funds and other changes were likely to slash the number of affordable homes projects by property developers by a massive 65 per cent – or by a total of 20,390 homes.

With 4.5 million people currently on the list for social housing and another 2.6 million people living in overcrowded conditions, Mr Franklin warned that the situation could rapidly deteriorate unless ministers thought very carefully about their financial decisions.

New Housing Minister Grant Shapps has already addressed the issue, albeit in a gloomy manner, asserting last week that around 150 social housing developments face being scrapped due to the £610 million public debt that he is charged with cutting.

The government now plans to axe £100 million from the National Affordable Housing Programme, which was meant to make possible the construction of 59,000 new properties by the end of the 2010-11 financial year. The cutback will now reduce the number of houses being built by 1,453, warned Mr Franklin, going on to warn that “many property developers who have invested millions into developing sites for new property developments are now facing the prospect of having money promised to them by the government withdrawn.”

The National Housing Federation is seeking a meeting with the minister to discuss the crisis.

Property developers take note – according to the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), retrofitting is due to take off due to the requirements of the government’s environmentally-friendly construction agenda.

The FMB said that many new jobs in construction will be created over the next few years based upon the need to ensure retrofitting of energy efficient and carbon reduction technologies.

It pointed out that the latest figures to be published by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply reveal that there has been an increase in construction recruitment over the past month. The statistics also indicate that the volume of construction work available is now at its highest level since September 2007.

FMB director of external affairs Brian Berry said that much of this was down to the government’s insistence that existing homes be made more energy efficient, requiring much retrofitting of carbon reduction materials.

The requirement for carbon reduction systems in new homes also means that the technologies required are being sought after by property developers.

The new government is committed to actually encouraging a green agenda and making our existing homes more energy efficient,” Mr Berry said.

“I think we have already seen an upturn there in more entrepreneurial construction companies taking advantage of that. In terms of the retrofitting market and energy efficiency, that is where the job creation will be in the next few years.”

In one example last month, British Gas opened a green skills training centre in south Wales which aims to help advise and train some 1,300 people in readiness for new construction and civil engineering work.

A leading supplier of construction materials has warned that certain materials aimed at increasing energy efficiency and carbon reduction are being severely underused by the property developer community.

SIG operations director Vince Lunn urged builders and property developers to start incorporating green technologies as standard practice in their projects.

Mr Lunn gave as an example a copolymer that has been developed by SIG with the intention of being used in buildings with a low thermal mass to prevent the rapid fluctuation of room temperatures.

He explained that “the copolymer sites in the walls and at 22 degrees it melts. When it melts it takes up some latent heat in order to do that, so that actually cools down that building or that room.”

“As the temperature drops and as it reaches 18 degrees, it solidifies and actually gives some of that heat back.”

Although the material is already in use, Mr Lunn stressed that it can potentially be used in many different parts of a building than just the walls. He said that it was down to the construction industry to think outside the box and innovate to ensure that more carbon reduction technology was utilised.

“One of the challenges we face all the time is we work with lots of manufacturers and we bring a lot of products and I challenge the idea that it is becoming more mainstream,” he said, insisting that property developers need to be more “imaginative.”

This looks likely to be an uphill struggle, however. At the start of the week, the Department of Energy and Climate Change announced that it is rejecting any new applicants to the Low Carbon Building Programme due to spending cuts.

The global economic downturn has made it far harder for property developers to obtain necessary finance, and recently the head of one of the UK’s largest property companies has warned that easier lending conditions are not likely to come back “for the foreseeable future.”

British Land chief executive Chris Grigg told The Times newspaper that the ongoing financial crisis has a number of long-term knock on effects, chief among which is that the banks remain very wary of financing property developers’ schemes compared to other kinds of lending on real estate deals.

Speaking recently at the British Council for Offices’ annual conference, he had predicted that smaller property developers will need to enter into partnerships with sovereign wealth funds and private equity companies in order to continue with their projects.

Mr Grigg expanded on this subject in his interview with The Times, saying: “Will banks finance development? Yes, but at much, much lower levels of leverage.”

“Development, even in London, will be more modest than it has been for a long period, and the little that gets done will tend to be by well-capped, larger companies.”

He went on to say that regulations concerning capital adequacy had often acted a brake on development during the boom period of the previous decade. These regulations direct banks to maintain enough cash reserves to cover the riskier areas of lending.

British Land’s figures show that even when the property market was at its peak in 2007, the development of London office space only reached around six million square feet, whereas during the 1990-91 boom they reached 14 million square feet. Mr Grigg pointed out that since 2007, capital adequacy rules have been tightened still further.

Combative US property developer Donald Trump has revealed that he is pressing on with his controversial scheme to build a massive golfing resort on Scotland’s north-eastern coast

Mr Trump flew into Aberdeen this week to promote the property development project and to answer the criticisms of protesters and locals who are utterly opposed to the £750 million scheme.

He told the Financial Times: “With the world’s financial markets crashing, with the euro and other currencies – except for the dollar – being at an all-time low, I want to highlight the fact that this development is being built with cash and does not rely on financing.”

“Sixty million dollars has already been invested in the project by me – it is being built out of my back pocket. I do not even have a mortgage or financing on the land – unlike many other developments that are announced and never built.”

The Scottish Government granted Mr Trump planning permission for the resort two years ago. The development entails two coastal championship golf courses, with an adjoining five-star hotel with 450 bedrooms and a golfing academy, along with 950 holiday homes and 500 private family residences – plus 36 luxury golfing villas.

Last autumn the first landscaping work began on the site, with marram grass being planted on its sand dunes. Mr Trump told the newspaper that he planned to name the dunes “The Great Dunes of Scotland.”

He explained: “This name is a tribute to my mother, Mary Macleod, who was born and raised in Scotland – and very much loved her country – and also to Scotland itself.”

With the new Conservative-LibDem coalition government setting out its stall for the next parliamentary session, property developers and building companies are anxiously waiting to see what can be done to improve the sluggish state of British construction.

Although some 4.5 million people are currently on waiting lists for housing – a record number – fewer houses are actually being built than at any time since World War II, and the recent collapse in the value of development land cannot be blamed for the entirety of the problem.

Property developers have repeatedly complained about the long-winded and complex planning process that is currently required before construction can begin – and government proposals to give local councils increased powers in relation to planning could increase the red tape burden.

Planning and urban regeneration experts are calling on ministers to ensure that any planned changes to the UK planning regime are properly trialled and tested before being rolled out nationally, in order to prevent the stifling of any recovery in the building market.

“A swifter and more flexible planning process is needed, together with a sustained increase in property prices, to enable currently mothballed sites to be developed,” Guy Jenkinson of property consultants Bidwells told the Independent newspaper.

“This scenario could be hampered by the Liberal Democrat/Conservative plan to give more power to local government in planning decisions and is of concern to house builders who perceive a lengthening of the already lengthy planning process.”

Other concerns among property developers revolve around “green” proposals from the new government. Although the industry generally welcomes a focus on sustainable development and carbon neutrality, such measures could hamper a recovering property market.

B & E Boys complete construction work on Riggs Rochdale garden centre after extensive fire damage.

Following a devastating fire towards the back end of 2009 Gordon Riggs Garden Centre in Rochdale had a significant portion of their retail area put out of action. Following an instruction from their Insurers, B and E Boys commenced work on re-building the burnt out section of the Garden Centre. This work in now nearing completion and the Garden Centre will be fully operational in time for the Easter Break.  The design included the re-instatement of a faceted glazed roof, which can be seen as you approach from the M62 at Junction 22. The Architect and the Structural Engineer was Thomasons.

B & E Boys are often called in do undertake fire damage work on behalf of unsurers and have previously been employed to undertake work on buildings such as the Poundland Store in Cheetham Hill, and Viridors waste recycling plant in St Helens.

B & E Boys are able to offer quick mobilisation where business recovery times are essential.

B & E Boys work on 5th project for East Lancashire NHS Primary Care Trust, on Eagle Street Accrington.

B & E Boys are currently working for N.H.S. East Lancs P.C.T on a re-furbishment of their offices on Eagle Street, Accrington. The work will create additional clinical space, which will be used by external agencies to maximise N.H.S. resources. The contract is currently nearing completion and will be completed within the original time frame and within budget.

The Architect is Blue Sky Architects who provide architectural services for many of the East Lancashire NHS schemes and the Services Engineers are Pettet Singleton Associates.

This will be the 5^th Contract that B and E Boys have completed for East Lancs P.C.T. within the last two years, with other schemes including the Waterfoot and Clitheroe Health Centres. Boys have worked hard to deliver quality projects for the NHS and we hope we can maintain the current relationship we have with the P.C.T. well in to the future.

Construction services in the health care sector is something that B & E Boys have been providing for several decades having worked at Royal Preston Hospital as well as working at several Ramsay Healthcare centres in locations such as Nottingham, Preston, Salford and Bingley.

Work can be complex with a clear understanding of how facilities work being needed and often being done out of hours to ensure cleanliness at the facilities is not compromised.

Renovation and improvement work to St Annes Church, Waterfoot completed.

B & E Boys keen to promote Industrial Units and Offices with Green Energy credentials as they pursue Hydro, Wind and PV electric power.

B & E Boys are now in the final stages of lodging a planning application for their J2 Business Park, Hydro electric scheme. The site just on junction 2 of the M66 is bound by the River Roche and offers an ideal opportunity to reduce the Companies carbon footprint. Boys are also recording wind and solar data at their Waters Meeting Business Park with a view to producing Wind generated electricity for its Britannia Office Quarter, and Photo Voltaic generated Electricity for its industrial tenants.

The Government is pursuing the reduction of carbon emission by 30% by 2020 and by 80% in 2050. There is a lot of pressure on electricity generators to clean up their acts with electric production being as low as 30% efficient by the time it reaches your home. Government targets have been set so that 40% of the Countries electricity is generated by renewable means by 2020. The power companies will have to meet the target or face financial penalties. On site power generation has become more viable with the introduction of the new Feed In Tariffs (FIT’s) due to be introduced in April this year. By introducing the FIT’s the Government is icentivizing private sector power generation and this means that the B & E Boys can reduce its carbon footprint and offer tenants much more efficient “green” electricity.

B & E Boys’ Waters Meeting site is located on Tong Moore within the Valley Retail and Business Park and is home to the former Sandusky / Belloit Walmsley factory which was once in the heart of Industrial Bolton. Boys are offering part of the 400,000 sq foot premises for alternative uses which could include recycling, warehousing or manufacturing processes.