Editorial

Citation

Brand, M.C. (2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlbe.2012.41104baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Volume 4, Issue 2

It is my pleasure that I write to you for the first time as a member of the Editorial Team of the IJLBE, which I affectionately referred to here as “the Journal”.

As some may know, I, along with many of the current members of the Editorial Advisory Board, have been associated with the Journal since publication of the first issue back in 2009. It is exceptional in an academic career that one is given the chance to play a part, however small, in establishing a new scholarly journal – insofar as the Journal is concerned, I am grateful to have had my chance to play a small part in making this happen. It has been satisfying for me to see the Journal grow, both in standing and stature, over the years. This growth is made all the more satisfying when I consider the crowded space in which a new journal enters and the myriad of challenges that a new journal must otherwise face in order to survive, let alone flourish. And flourish, it has. The Journal is now in its fourth year of publication, with this being the eleventh issue.

The Journal’s success thus far is due, in the main, to the visionary and sound leadership of its founder, Dr Paul Chynoweth, together with the expert input of the distinguished members of the Journal’s international Advisory Board, the high quality and generous support of the Journal’s reviewers, and, of course, the outstanding researchers and authors who have provided our readers with a consummate international view of law in the built environment.

To my mind, the Journal represents genuine innovation. There is a patent intersection between the legal and built environment research domains. It is an important intersection, but one that has commonly been a lonesome place to stand for researchers seeking to publish work that did not always cleanly fit within the remits of traditional legal and built environment journals. The Journal has provided a comfortable home for much of this important work. Moreover, the Journal has introduced an altogether new international platform upon which to establish legal scholarship within the broader framework of built environment academic research.

I look forward to working with the Editorial Team over the coming years with the aim of building on the success of the Journal.

As befits the international remit of the Journal, the papers in this issue come from Australia, Sweden and the UK. The five papers have come from eight authors. One paper is multi-national. One paper is multi-disciplinary. The range of topics is wide with two papers on statutory adjudication in the building and construction industry. The range of research methods applied is just as wide, including case-study, black-letter, and empirical methods.

Lindqvist explores the concept of transparency in relation to residential housing issues within the EU’s internal market, and to identify the essential factors that need to be addressed. There is little prior research in this area that focuses specifically on residential transactions. Based on this study, five dimensions of transparency are identified, namely transparency in transaction procedure, legal information, financing, taxation and transaction costs.

Coggins and Donohoe undertake a valuable comparative analysis of the development of the law in England and New South Wales and focuses on the question of the validity of adjudicators’ determinations containing errors of law. Based on the authors’ reasoned analysis of the relevant case law in both jurisdictions, they highlight a divergence in judicial policy between these jurisdictions. The authors’ conclude that it may be more difficult to enforce an adjudicator’s determination containing an error of law in England than in New South Wales.

Sidoli del Ceno empirically examines, from a residents’ perspective, the effects of selective licensing under the Housing Act 2004 on an area of social depravation. The results of the study indicate, inter alia, that the selective licence has had some limited but positive effects on the well-being of residents, and that the standards of property management and the perceptions of anti-social behaviour had shown improvement.

Akintoye, Renukappa and Lal empirically examine the potential implications to the adjudication process in the UK under the recently amended Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 as a result of the abolition of the “contract in writing” rule. The findings indicate that construction industry stakeholders are well aware of the amendment and perceive that it will be good for their business. Industry perceptions are that the amendment will increase: the number of adjudications, the number of hearings before adjudicators, assessment of witness evidence, cost and timeframe for adjudication.

Leshinsky considers the use of planning agreement in the Australian context and how they can be used as tools in preserving environmental values and principles. The paper relies on a case study from the Municipality of Casey in the State of Victoria. The case study suggests that, whilst planning agreements may establish procedures and practices to preserve flora and fauna in this case, the effectiveness of the planning agreements as an environmental preservation tool has limitations due to the lack of resources for effective information dissemination and enforcement.

I hope you enjoy reading the papers in this issue.

Before closing out this editorial, I have been asked to say a few words about the recent establishment of the Adjudication Research + Reporting Unit (“the ARRU”), which I hope will resonate with those who have an academic and/or professional interest in statutory adjudication in the building and construction industry. For the uninitiated, adjudication in this context is a relatively new and popular form of dispute resolution created specifically for the construction industry. Whilst all adjudication schemes are statue-based, there are varying degrees of difference between each scheme around the world. It is fortuitous that in this issue of the Journal two papers touch upon the two main models of statutory adjudication – the UK and New South Wales models.

From a standing start in early 2009, the ARRU was officially established on 1 August 2011. The ARRU is funded by the New South Wales Government through the Department of Finance and Services (“the DFS”). The ARRU resides as a specialist research unit within the Faculty of the Built Environment in the University of New South Wales. The purposes of the ARRU are, first, to undertake research on key aspects of the performance of statutory adjudication in the building and construction industry and, second, to serve an adjudication reporting clearinghouse for the DFS.

The ARRU has been, in many respects, inspired by the long-standing success of the Adjudication Research Centre (“the ARC”), which is hosted by the Glasgow Caledonian University, UK. As many know in adjudication circles, Peter Kennedy was a driving force behind the establishment of the ARC back in 1998. I was fortunate enough to have had a close association with Peter through our work in establishing and jointly convening CIB Task Group 67 on Adjudication for the Construction Industry. Looking back at our association and, of course, our mutual gusto for all things “adjudication”, and for other reasons, it is perhaps one of those inevitabilities that the ARRU would be established in one form or another.

The ARRU has just launched its web site (which sits within the main UNSW Built Environment web site). In time, I hope to establish the ARRU web site as a useful platform for the dissemination of research and reporting undertaken by the ARRU as well as for other information on adjudication and related issues of practical import to academics and the industry.

Michael C. BrandAssociate Editor