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Construction progress report
Construction progress reports are prepared regularly (often monthly) by the contract
administratorduring the construction phase and issued to the client. They will
generally be a summary of the reports received and discussions held at construction
progress meetings.
Construction progress reports may be a combination of minutes of construction
progress meetings and reports received during those meetings, with key issues
highlighted in an accompanying cover note. Alternatively they may be a re-written
version of that information prepared specifically to suit the client's requirements.
Construction progress reports might include:

A summary of the progress made in each key area of the project.

Analysis of progress against the programme

An explanation of the causes of any delays.

Progress photos.

Analysis of key performance indicators.

An assessment of any quality issues.

Weather reports.

An assessment of any health and safety issues.

Reports of any issues with neighbours (such as noise, dust, vibrations, rights
of light, access, safety etc).

Reports about off-site fabrication and off-site payments.

Earned value analysis.

An assessment of any design issues.

An assessment of any other issues that need to be addressed and proposals

for addressing them.

Any instructions required from the client.

Look ahead to the next period (including specific requirements for progress
photos during the next period, which may include off-site fabrication photos).
On construction management projects, the construction manager holds
regular construction progress meetings with the client and consultant team,
however they will also hold regularconstruction progress meetings with trade
contractors to discuss on and off-site progress against the programme and to coordinate the release of information. It may sometimes be appropriate for these
meetings to take place at the trade contractor's premises. Construction progress
reports will then be prepared for the client.

Similar reports may be prepared on management contract projects in relation

to works contractorprogress.

Key performance indicators KPI

Key performance indicators can be used to:

Monitor costs.
Track progress.
Assess client satisfaction.
Identify strengths & weaknesses.
Compare performance across and between projects.
Assess specific areas of a project such as sustainability, safety, waste
management etc.
It is important that key performance indicators are identified in tender
documentation and that the regular provision of the information required to
assess key performance indicators is a requirement of the contract. This may
require the provision of sub-contractor information where performance on
specific packages is to be monitored.
Key performance indicators may be of particular importance where
the contract stipulates that the contractor will be rewarded or penalised based on
their performance relative to certain indicators.
Examples of key performance indicators that can be used on construction projects

include:

Cost vs budget.

Project progress relative to milestones.

Number of complaints.

Number of incidents / accidents.

The number of working hours spent on different aspects of the works.

The use of materials (for example the amount of concrete poured).

The number of defects.

The amount of waste generated and the amount of recycling.

The number of variations.

Key performance indicators are also a means to help with the rapid comprehension
of the current financial position. Key performance indicators summarise the

comparison of figures against thebudgeted values and also industry benchmarks

that are published from the result of inter-firm comparison reports.

KPI's to track profitability may include:

Turnover by director /partner.
Turnover by fee earner.
Profit by director/partner.
Profit by fee earner.
Only genuinely important performance indicators should be monitored so that it
does not simply become a time consuming paper exercise.
Key performance indicators can also be used more broadly as part of a benchmarking exercise to assess the performance of one project relative to another, to
assess businesses compared to others within the industry and to assess the
performance of the industry as a whole relative to the rest of the economy

Health and safety for building design and construction

To help develop this article, click 'Edit this article' above.

Buildings can present a great number of possible risks both in construction and
operation. There are many duties placed on those commissioning, designing,
constructing and operating buildings to control those risks.
The legislation affecting health and safety in design and construction falls under

the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act through regulations that include:
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations.
The Building Regulations.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
The Work at Height Regulations.
The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations.
The Construction (Head Protection) Regulations.
The Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations.
The Work in Compressed Air Regulations.
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations.
The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH).
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations.
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations.
The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations.
The Control of Asbestos Regulations.

Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations.

Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations.
A full list is available in the appendices of HSE Health and safety in construction,
although some of the regulations listed in the publication have since been revoked
following revisions to the The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations in
2007 (the revoked legislation is listed in the appendices of theApproved Code of
Practice. Managing health and safety in construction).
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM regulations) in
particular are intended to ensure that health and safety issues are properly
considered during a projects development. They include general requirements that
apply to all projects and additional duties that only apply to notifiable construction
projects (where the construction work is likely to last longer than 30 working days
and have more than 20 workers working simultaneously at any point in the project,
or exceed 500 person days).

The CDM regulations impose duties on:

The client.
Designers.
Principal designer.
Principal contractor.
Contractors.
Workers.
Many additional requirements are placed on the design of buildings by the Building
Regulations(such as; part A: structural safety part B: fire safety, part K: protection
from falling, part N:glazing safety, part P: electrical safety etc.)
NB under the Health and Safety (Fees)Regulations, the Fee for Intervention scheme
allows theHealth and Safety Executive to recover the costs of intervention from
those who fail to comply with health and safety legislation.
For additional information see articles on CDM and Building Regulations.

Rights to light
Contents
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Introduction
Interpretation
Measurement
Obstruction
Rules of thumb
Remedies
Recent considerations
Find out more
8.1 Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
8.2 External references

Introduction
The right to light in the UK goes back to general property law relating
to easements that date back to William IV. The Ancient Lights Law became
superseded by the 1832 Prescription Act. NB In the USA all such rights and laws
were abolished following the introduction of electric lighting.
Rights to light generally become an issue when a new development, or proposed
development affects the access to light of an adjoining property. Rights to light also
apply to obstructions caused by trees, hedges and so on, but there are no rights to
light for open ground.
Rights to light can be the result of 'easements', or can be nuisance issues:

Private nuisance regulates interference with a persons right to enjoy land, or

some right in connection with that land. Such interference must be unreasonable
to constitute nuisance.Nuisance can be remedied by an
injunction, abatement and / or damages.
An easement is a a right which a person has over land owned by someone
else. Aneasement can be created by express grant (for example it may be set out
in a conveyancedeed), by necessity (for example if there is only one means of
access to a site) or by prescription (the act has been repeated for at least 20
years). Easements are normally attached to the land. In relation to rights to light,

an easement can perpetuate even if a new building is constructed. This means

that it cannot be assumed that no rights to light exist simply because neighbouring
buildings appear to be new.

Interpretation
Generally a right to light refers to the right to receive sufficient light through an
opening (such as a window), allowing ordinary comfortable use and enjoyment of
a dwelling, or ordinarybeneficial use and occupation of other buildings.
The levels of acceptable light have not been objectively quantified and are instead
assessed on a case by case basis by the courts. However, sufficient light according
to the ordinary notions of mankind and tangible deprivation to a building are
arguable expressions that have earned substantial fees to the legal and surveying
professions and given rise to specialists and expert witnesses in this field.
Much depends on:

The measurement of light.

Proof of its diminution.
The damage caused by obstruction.

Measurement
It is now relatively straight forward to measure, or model lighting levels on working
planes within buildings and to assess whether there is currently adequate light to
perform tasks such as reading, or whether there will be once a proposed
development is constructed.
Natural light to a building can be achieved in different forms and provide varying
light power:

Skylights capturing light from the higher sky

Vertical window light capturing light from the lower sky
Dormer light
Lantern light
Sloping cove light
Borrowed light.

Glazing can have variable translucency such as:

Obscure glass
Tinted low emissivity glass
Frosted glass
Clear glass
Windows can be of different sizes, heights and quantity and serve varying room
sizes with natural light. Generally the larger the area served by a window the more
value can be put on to the window.

Obstruction
The obstruction of light between an internal space of the dominant property and the
sky by a servient property is generally caused either by either:

Height of an offending structure and de facto its width.

Or proximity and de facto its width.
The general law on easement does not allow a servient property to benefit in value
at the expense of the dominant property if the latter has enjoyed uninterrupted
rights for twenty years or more.

Rules of thumb
The '45 degree rule', which may be used to assess planning applications for
developments impacting on windows, is not used to assess rights to light.
The '50:50 rule' however, may be deemed adequate. This involves determining
what percentage of a room receives adequate light on a working plane 850mm
above the floor. An injury may be considered to have occurred where the
percentage is reduced to less than 50%. Where more than 50% of the room still
receives adequate light however, an injury may not be considered to have occurred,
irrespective of the amount of light that has been lost.

Remedies

The most likely remedy to a loss of a right to light is an injunction. Courts do not like
to awarddamages in such cases, as this could be seen as a developer being able to
buy the rights of another. However if damages are awarded, they may be based
on:

The use and purpose (historical) of the rooms affected by the infringement.
The loss of natural light power over the affected by the obstruction.
The additional value to the property of the servient offender. This may be a
proportion of thedevelopers profits, where the proportion relates to the amount of
floor space that thedeveloper could not have built if they had not infringed on
the right to light of their neighbour.
Any loss of residual value to the dominant property
The law and possible remedies surrounding rights to light are not straight forward.
There are complications in relation to some Crown land, statutory bodies
and compulsory purchase, and under certain circumstances developers can
obtain light obstruction notices. If it is possible that a development will
encounter rights to light issues, a right to light consultant can be appointed to give
expert advice.
In practice the dominant property by means of an interlocutory injunction can hold
up a development for a very long time while it takes its case to court. Time is
money and the delay while the legal case goes through the courts, particularly if it
is appealed, can bring everything to a halt. So a negotiation takes place with the
dominant owners team having a pretty good idea of the value of the infringement
to the servient owner and a deal is done or the design is changed to step back any
light obstructing structures.

Recent considerations

A right to light by prescription may be lost if a person submits to a loss of light for a
year before making a claim. This means that complaints should be made quickly,
and repeated frequently to ensure that the right is not lost before a claim is made.
However, the recent case of HKRUK II (CHC) Ltd v Heaney (2010) suggests that time
may no longer be a barrier to an injunction. SeeThe In-House Lawyer: Rights of light:
What you need to know post-Heaney.

See also Light obstruction notices.

In 2013, the Law Commission launched a consultation paper proposing radical
reform to rights to light to prevent them from becoming an unnecessary constraint on
development. The consultation ran from 18 February 2013 to 16 May 2013 (See The
Law Commission: Consultation Paper No 210, Rights to Light, A Consultation Paper).
The key recommendations, were published on 4 December 2014, in Final Report,
Rights to Light (Law Com No 356) and included:

A statutory notice procedure which would allow a landowners to require their

neighbours to tell them within a specified time if they intend to seek an injunction
to protect their right to light, or to lose the potential for that remedy to be
granted.
A statutory test to clarify when courts may order damages to be paid rather
than halting development or ordering demolition.
An updated version of the procedure that allows landowners to prevent their
neighbours from acquiring rights to light by prescription.
Amendment of the law governing where an unused right to light is treated as
abandoned.
A power for the Lands Chamber of the Upper Tribunal to discharge or modify
obsolete or unused rights to light.

Find out more

Earned value for construction contracts

Earned value analysis is a technique used to assess project progress by comparing
the amount and cost of work that was planned to have been done by a particular
stage with the amount that has actually been done and what it has actually cost.
This gives a good indication of how the project is progressing compared to what was
planned and enables forecasts to be made aboutthe eventual cost and time that will
be required to complete the project.
Typically earned value analysis is carried out for each of the packages that make up
the project. Actual outputs are measured against planned outputs (often on a
weekly basis) using the units that individual companies use to price and measure
work. This provides an opportunity to investigate discrepancies and take remedial
action where necessary. It also provides a fairly accurate insight into the
financial wellbeing of package contractors and provides early warning of a shortage
of resources or of an inefficient use of resources.
The key is to measure actual resource against planned resource using the
production units by which estimates have been produced in order to price a tender.
This can be:

Hours worked per week.

Number of workers per week.

Volume of say concrete per week per person.

Units fixed per week per person.

These items can be plotted weekly to alert the user to trends and allow them to
investigate causes. Furthermore it provides an overall general picture of
labour productivity for each monitored operation.
Carrying out this sort of analysis requires that project planning is broken down
into packages and that tender documentation is drafted to require contractors to
supply the information required.