<b><b>Laing is using a new technique on a development in St Albans to build basements that are damp-free and easy to install. Allison Heller visited the site</b></b><br><b>Eerie echoes of water dripping in the dank darkness, and slimy, moss covered walls - such images are often conjured up by the idea of a cellar.</b><br><b> But, on a small site in St Albans, Laing Homes is proving that such problems are for bygone times and cellars and basements in new developments can be economic, easy to build and free from the damp that plagued many past attempts at providing accommodation underground.</b><br><b><b>New technique</b></b><br> Laing has chosen its Canons Gate site in St Albans, a 17-dwelling development, to introduce basements into a standard range of house designs using techniques new to the UK, and is hailing it as &amp;"a major first for Laing Homes and a major first for our customers.&amp;"<p></p><p> Of course basements are not new to UK housebuilding. Eighteenth and nineteenth century inner-city dwellings commonly had cellars, which provided storage or living space in crowded urban environments. </p><p>But with the advent of modern transport systems, which opened up a seemingly endless supply of land and a wondrous new world of greenfield suburbia, …