Planning minister John Healey has announced that 270 stalled development projects across the country have been shortlisted for a share of £925m which could help get building work on 22,400 homes back on track and create 20,000 jobs.

Every region has shortlisted projects and will benefit from this major cash injection, part of the Prime Minister’s housing pledge announced last month, that will help build the homes the country needs, help it through the recession and help people into jobs. The projects have been identified by the Homes and Communities Agency through the Kickstart programme.

Read the HCA press release.

The above was taken from the Planning Portal news round-up 30 July 2009.

The Regional Agricultural Centre has been short listed for the 2009 EG Green Awards in the category Retail/Leisure Development of the Year.

This is a fantastic achievement for the team (Yorkshire Agricultural Society, P+HS, Houseman & Falshaw, and DKP) who all worked so hard to make this highly sustainable building a reality. Other short listed finalists in this category are Land Securities,Tesco, and Hammerson – all £multimillion/billion operations with national and international presence: so I reckon our team from Yorkshire have done pretty well!

The building was conceived as a green development from the start and it’s about sustainability right through from its timber frame upwards; using local teams, skills and materials wherever we could, and incorporating more special sustainable features than you could shake a stick at, making it one of the most sustainable buildings in Yorkshire.

It’s now down to the public vote, so here’s the link for you to show your support for what small, regional alliances can achieve with vision, creativity and honest hard graft.
Vote Here.

I attended the York Design Awards 2009, last Monday evening, which were held in the new £60M York College campus.

There was a strong field of entries this year and there were categories for new build, conservation, open space/public realm and mixed (those that do not fit elsewhere).

In the new build category there were 20 schemes which ranged from simple house extensions to our development at Heworth Green, a real mixed bag. 3 prizes were given out in this category and the winner for the large development was the recently completed York Eco Business Centre.

Whilst we did not bag a prize the Chairman of the panel of judges (Mr. Ken Powell,MA,Hon.RIBA) said of our building ‘it is a slick well finished building rarely seen in the city with a feeling of international architecture’

The Lord Mayor’s Prize went to York St. John University, De Grey Court (which is also a Yorkshire RIBA 2009 winner) if you have not seen the building follow this link.

The housing industry and architects have welcomed the London Housing Design Guide, published last week by London mayor Boris Johnson’s office, despite some feeling that new proposals on space standards do not go far enough.

Read more in the AJ online article by Christopher Sell.

We are delighted to share more news of our students. We first met Shoaib Mahmood when he spent a year with P+HS during his year out from University. Shoaib is now back in our Leeds office having completed his degree, and has just received his results: a First Class Honours Degree and the C.I.A.T. Award for Outstanding Achievement with the highest class mark this year! Congratulations to Shoaib and welcome back to the P+HS team.

I’m sure you all know we subscribe to IHS to provide us with access to the latest British Standards, Building Regulations, Health Technical Memoranda etc. If you have not looked follow this link http://uk.ihs.com/

Our user Log in is phsa and I’m sure a team member will give you the password!

Having just renewed our subscription we have been given the data on just how often it has been used.
Back in April of this year for example The Construction Information Service was accessed 66 times which as expected our far biggest use of the portal. Specify-it being the next highest accessed at 7 times last December.

Overall we have accessed it 589 times in the year, and viewed 1113 documents.