The latest ONS figures for total volume of new construction orders show that they have increased by 0.2% in Q2 of 2012 compared to Q1, this is 11.1% more than Q2 of 2011. Although the total volume of new construction orders has slightly increased over the first two quarters of the year Glenigan has reported that construction output has fallen by 3.9% over Q2 2012. This leaves construction output down by 8.6% compared to a year ago.

The Nationwide House Price Index has reported that house prices have rebounded slightly in August showing a 1.8% increase. According to Nationwide this brings the typical price of a house to £164,729. Whereas the Halifax House Price Index has reported that during August house prices fell by 0.4%. In addition to this the NHBC has shown some promising figures for private sector housing starts, as these are now 2% higher than last year.

Despite the recession not easing, some large companies are still announcing large profit increases such as Costain reporting a 52% pre-tax profit jump due to a strong performance in its infrastructure division. Also Lend Lease announced its European construction profits rose by 28%. However Laing O'Rourke, despite a recently announced 8% increase in revenue, reported a 20% drop in profits compared to last year.

Following David Cameron's Government reshuffle there have been several changes that could affect the construction industry. Mark Prisk has replaced Grant Shapps as Housing Minister and Michael Fallon has become the new Construction Minister. Another new appointment is Paul Deighton, currently Chief Executive of LOCOG who will join the Treasury with responsibility for infrastructure development.

A positive announcement to come from the government is support for new housing in the form of £10 billion of underwritten loans to build homes for rent and £300 million of additional funding for 15,000 affordable homes. A new agency will be formed to broker the loans supported by the Homes & Communities Agency. There will also be an additional £280 million of funding for the FirstBuy scheme.

DECC have released details of new analysis into the potential for innovation in new technologies for marine energy, electricity networks and storage, and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Known as Technology Innovation Needs Assessments (TINAs), they examine the potential for innovation in these technologies and assess the economic benefits to the UK. This work will also help inform the prioritisation of public and private sector investment to ensure these technologies reach their full potential.

DECC has also announced a low carbon innovation fund for entrepreneurs to develop new ideas. There is up to £10million available to support energy efficiency technologies such as building control systems, advanced lighting systems, and space heating and cooling technologies and £6million available for power generation and energy storage technologies including fuel cells, biomass boilers and heat pumps.

No news on the next edition of Part L of the Building Regulations, due to be published in October. The Building Regulations Advisory Committee Part L working party meets on 20th September, perhaps something can then be issued.

To assume that the contractor is insisting on using the cheapest product available is far from the reality. There are many influences on product choice. The specification salesman must create demand, reduce the importance of price and transfer influence away from the supply chain to the manufacturer. In this blog article we review the tools available to the specification salesman in achieving this. Read the full blog article.

There is still talk about the Google Algorithm updates, with Pauley Creative demonstrating how to monitor the traffic on your site against the algorithm updates released by Google, to gauge the effect they are having. Whereas Jan Klin gives a step by step guide to the updates in Google Web Tools.

Over the last few weeks BIM has grown in momentum and there are a number of new information resources available, not forgetting our very own Adoption of BIM research.

The BIM task group have collated a webpage of FAQ's and the National BIM Library have published an article on feedback so far. There are also a number of events to help with understanding BIM and how it affects your strategy. The first being The Changing Face of Specification being hosting in London by CIMCIG on the 27th September, with the next being on the 2nd October, Applying BIM throughout the building project lifecycle: From work stages A to M.