Small and medium enterprises across the UK are set to spend £8 billion more on technology this year than they did during 2013, a survey of more than 2,000 businesses by GE Capital was able to reveal.
SMEs will spend £22.8bn on technology in 2014, up 54% on their collective tech expenditure last year according to the report. As a result, sales in IT hardware, software and office equipment are poised for growth.
Cornwall residents will be given a chance to design their own homes as the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), Carillion-igloo and Coastline Housing have signed a legal agreement that lays the groundwork for up to 150 new and affordable homes to be built beside the Heartlands regeneration project at Trevenson Park, Pool.
Housing Delivery Partners, a consortium made up of private housing developer Redrow Homes, affordable housing provider Liverpool Mutual Homes (LMH) and its building contractor Willmott Dixon, are set to embark on a very ambitious house building and regeneration scheme in the area, all worth a whopping £200m.
The Government’s Help to Buy scheme has helped over 27,000 people across the country move into new homes and it’s likely to lead to 200,000 new homes being built until 2020.
The Help to Buy Equity Loan enables people to buy a newly-built home with a deposit of at least 5% of the property price, while the government offers a loan of up to 20%, while the rest is covered by a mortgage, a news report tackling this topic explains.
Plans to fully regenerate a housing estate in Hackney and build more than 3,000 new homes in the process received a seal of approval from the Mayor of London as part of the the Woodberry Down ‘Masterplan’.
Back in 2005, developer Berkeley Homes began to regenerate the Woodberry Down Estate in Hackney, comprising 1,980 properties that date back to the 1940s. To this date, the company has built 862 new homes, with a further 180 currently under construction, a news source could reveal.
A total of £1.5bn has been set aside for several regeneration schemes targeting Liverpool, a news report in the local business media could reveal.
The initiatives could lead to the creation of 12,000 construction jobs and 4,000 permanent jobs while a further existing 3,000 jobs will be safeguarded.
Heathrow Airport has announced some very ambitious development plans, which will see more than 100,000 new UK jobs being created and at least £100bn of UK economic benefits.
The expansion plans will be submitted to the Airports Commission, with the submission following discussions with local residents and businesses, the public, businesses around the country, passengers, airlines and elected representatives across the UK’s nations and regions, a news report on the matter could reveal.
Absence is one of the most common reasons for employees failing a probation period, accounting for half (50%) of all failures, second only to poor performance (62%), a recent survey has revealed.
Research from Spring Personnel has also revealed that close to 18% of workers have had their probation period extended or they failed it altogether, while only one in five businesses (21%) never extend a candidate’s probation period.
The UK housing industry continued its fast-rising trend over the first three months of 2014, with 33,816 new homes being registered in the UK during Q1 2014, compared to 31,739 for the corresponding period a year ago – an increase of 7%, figures released by the NHBC have recently revealed.
The next British government should commit to a large-scale house-building programme in order to avoid a very serious housing crisis, a report by KPMG and Shelter has argued.
The report points out that the UK, as a country, it is building just less than half of the 250,000 new homes a year needed to keep up with demand.