Legal Issues For Those Running UK Construction Businesses (October 2019)

Our autumn round-up of articles written by colleagues highlights a wide range of issues affecting businesses in the UK construction industry.

To find out more about these issues and their effect on your business, please contact one of the team listed on the right, or your usual UK Construction team contact.

Construction

For our latest round-up of new and proposed legislation affecting the construction industry, see the New and proposed legislation summary, August 2019. Energy and renewable energy

Laura Mackett discusses the new UK statutory emissions target of Net Zero by 2050, including its background, amendments to the Climate Change Act, wide-reaching changes required to achieve Net Zero and what businesses should be thinking about now. See: The government's net-zero emissions by 2050 target will ensure a changing climate for business and society. Following the enactment of a "net zero" target for UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, the outgoing Conservative government published a large number of energy policy documents, covering everything from funding new nuclear power stations to energy efficiency. If you would like to know more, register for our seminar on 5 November 2019 here: Dentons Energy Breakfast: Aiming for net zero: Is the UK making the right energy policy choices?. Environmental

The UK's insatiable appetite for ever-cheaper food has had a hugely detrimental impact on our environment, the public's health and food security. This is not sustainable. Annabel Hodge discusses what happens when your ethical food policy is no longer flavour of the month and suggests that businesses plan carefully for legal changes when they invest in sustainability. See: Food sustainability: the impact of civil society. Housebuilding and planning

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has highlighted the need for the government to promote modern methods of construction to get anywhere near its target of 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. In Embrace Hard Choices As Well As Modern Methods, Roy Pinnock considers the Committee's recommendations and asks whether there is a need for a wider exercise of political will to achieve the shift. In Private keep out!, Mark Child discusses the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and the "right to roam" granted over certain designated open country land and coastal margins. In The cost of justice: certainty? Stephen Ashworth considers whether the courts are starting to be more generous...