Newsround: 20 Feb 2009

LISTED PROPERTY SHOW at Olympia, London, is on this weekend, 21-22 February from 10am. Entry is free and eSalvo readers are especially welcome to drop in on the Salvo stand and the other dozen or so stands of major dealers who run the gamut of architectural salvage and reclaimed building materials materials from around the UK. Exhibitors and their colleagues are cordially invited to a Salvo Convivial 'Reuse Before Recycling' Victory Pub Crawl in Notting Hill on Saturday evening starting at The Churchill Arms at 119 Kensington Church Street at 6pm to celebrate the EU Waste Framework Directive's priority for reuse over recycling which will become law throughout Europe. No longer will reclaimable bricks be crushed! "We shall reclaim on the demo sites, we shall reuse in the fields and in the streets, we shall reuse bricks in the hills; we shall never recycle," Britain's most famous bricklayer, Sir Winston Churchill, once famously said.

MALLAMS will be holding a garden ornament and statuary sale in May, with a closing date for entries 1 May, contact Ben LLoyd. Summers Place are also calling for entries for their May sale, closing date 6 March, contact James Rylands or Rupert van der Werff. Brightwells will be holding a sale which includes garden ornament on 25 February in Leominster. Gaze Bygones modern design sale is on 14 February and their bygones sale follows on 28 February.

LAPADA's annual survey shows an increase in the age and a decline in the fortunes of its membership. There has been a shift away from selling at fairs and an increase in sales in members' shops. The Artists Resale Rights affect four percent of current sales, but once they shift to include dead artists the prediction is that 40 percent of sales will be affected. Salvo plans to repeat the LAPADA survey for Salvo Code dealers to see how the salvage trade compares.

CONSTRUCTION output is set for a nine percent decline in 2009 and a further four percent in 2010 according to the trade body, Construction Products Association. Private housing starts dropped 43 percent in 2008 and are expected to drop another 32 percent in 2009 - to levels not seen since 1952. Government spending on schools is set to increase by 28 percent over the next two years as part of the new £45bn Building Schools for the Future package, and will increase in other areas of the public sector too, including major infrastructure projects such as the London west east crossrail link.