Law Digest: 3 September 2009

In determining whether certain agreements constituted construction contracts for the purposes of the Housing Grants and Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, the Court ruled that s 105(1) of the Act contained a very wide definition of construction operations and s 105(2) contained specific exclusions.

In those circumstances, where s 105(2) had intentionally been drafted in terms of specific limited exclusions, a narrower approach to the construction of s 105(2) would generally be appropriate. If the intention had been to exclude all construction operations on a site where the primary activity was power generation then that could easily have been done or if it had been intended to exclude all preparatory activities, then a sub-section similar to s 105(1)(e) could have been added. A narrow construction would give effect to the Act by applying it only in cases where the work was assembly or installation of plant or machinery.