BOXPARK is an exciting development, and is the UK's first pop up shopping mall that opened in 2011. The shopping centre has been constructed from stripped, and refitted shopping containers, creating a unique and low cost, low risk pop-up stores. It is the first in the country and will hopefully be going Nationwide in the near future. If you would like to find out more about BOXPARK, then visit their BOXPARK website @ http://www.boxpark.co.uk/

Congratulations to our apprentice Jonathan Gillingham who has been selected for The Havebury Housing Partnership Cup - awarded to the most outstanding construction student of the year. Fantastic achievement, it's great to have you on our #Cambridge #Construction team...

CD Hood commercial and domestic builders in Cambridge know that there just are not enough new houses built in England each year to match the demand. This has been backed up by the latest statistics released by government, which reveal that new homes built in England last year fell by 11%.

Each year we need at least 250,000 homes to be built, however last less than half this figure, 98,280 were actually built. Between the years 2009 and 2010 only 115,000 new builds were completed, partly due to the down turn in the global economy, not because of reduced demand, and shockingly 250,000 homes in England have been empty for more than six months. 

The government is trying to encourage builders, investors and local councils to create new homes and solve the problem of empty homes. The DCLG, Department for Communities and Local Government are trying to introduce schemes to kick-start new home building, but so far they have had little impact on the ground. 

The DCLG have already ear marked enough public sector land to support 100,000 new homes, which they hope to sell to developers but it’s been pretty slow going so far.

The Community Right to Build law which was introduced in 2011 and it allows local communities to undertake small-scale, site-specific, community-led developments. The new powers give communities the freedom to build new homes, shops, businesses or facilities where they want them, without going through the normal planning application process. 

To get the go-ahead, the proposals must:

• have the agreement of more than 50% of local people that vote through a community referendum

•  meet some minimum requirements (for example, they should generally be in line with national planning policies and strategic elements of the local plan)

These eased planning restrictions and the NewBuy Gaurantee scheme aims to provide lending for first time buyers who cannot afford the large deposits needed to secure a cheap mortgage, but have so far made very little impact on the shortage of new builds in the UK.

CD Hood Commercial builders in Cambridge have been following the technological advances in battery life. One of the main problems until now with the modern world has been the lack of a super-efficient battery to lead us away from oil. The great news is that the latest battery technology has come from our local City, Cambridge. 

The new battery technology could double the energy storage at lower cost than the batteries using electric vehicles, aerospace, defense and handheld electronics. Batteries at the moment are made from lithium and metal oxide, which do not provide a high battery life. However researches from Cambridge University have developed a battery from composite sulphur and nanostructured carbon, which produce much more energy at a lower cost. 

A battery is made of three components, the cathode, anode and electrolyte, the raw cathode is the most expensive component of the battery, costing approx 40% of the total costs. This new lithium-icon battery market is expected to expand to $54 billion by 2020, up from $11.8 billion in 2010, in use in the consumer electronics and electric vehicle sectors. 

Over the next couple of years the scientific team, led by Dr Zhang are going to build a roll-to-roll machine to continuously produce the cathode material, and sell the product to major battery manufacturers. This is definitely one to watch, as it could shake up the world powers as we know it.