UK Construction Market – let no-one put asunder?

With the news that All Mass Cladding Systems’ creditors stand to lose £2m according to administrators, Grant Thornton, and the demise of Bristol based MJN Colston owing creditors £41m, you could be forgiven in thinking that recent announcements that UK Plc is back in recession is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

 

Despite these very sad instances, BPE are seeing a number of projects ranging from a few million up to £12-15m getting underway. There is a steady cycle of healthcare, retail and leisure and heritage regeneration schemes (despite adverse changes on VAT treatment for the latter) continuing to be tendered for, won and successfully completed.

 

We are not seeing a mass collapse of the market that we did in 2009. True, it’s too early to start predicting that things may not slow down but confidence in the ability of constructors and engineers to deliver projects on time and on budget is as high as ever.

 

Pre-Tender Solutions – There is a growing tendency for contractors to offer up solutions to problems pre-tender awards to avoid issues arising later. Sharp practice in profiting from Employer Design Team led mistakes is still happening, but severely frowned up as everyone needs to pull together in a much more collaborative way. Basically, very few can play roulette as to whether they get paid or not. Those that still do play by those rules are falling by the wayside. Everyone is fed up with the glass half full mentality and realise that we have to create our own luck at times and work more strategically to get projects off the ground.

 

Colleagues and clients always laugh at my expression for this, “contracting for grown-ups”, but that is really the essence of what needs to continue to happen.

 

“Quietly Confident” – I can’t say that some further big names will not go under, nor am I saying that the picture is rosy. I do think however that the construction and engineering industries in particular have ridden a very rough road since 2008 and that have sought to adapt their practices to survive. In doing so, we are seeing some excellent integration (good old fashioned team work) which is enhanced by technological advances. The appropriate use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) is set to help bring all parts of the team together and, over a period of time, may result in more efficient practices and cost savings which has to be a laudable goal, whether we find ourselves in tough economic times or not.