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Steve Callow is housing manager at MPA Masonry  As we progress through 2023, the indications of a cooling within the housing market are growing. It’s the last thing many want to hear across a sector that has been blighted by the unusual socioeconomic events of 2022. “We should by no…

Bill Hill is chief executive officer of the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity The statistics about wellbeing in construction do not make for good reading. About 20 per cent of all recorded work-related illness is down to stress, anxiety or depression. The true number is probably higher, because not everything is…

Joanne Conway is chair of the FM Conway Group Plenty of ink has been spilled writing about the construction skills crisis but the challenge remains – our industry needs to find a quarter of a million more workers by 2025 according to last year’s Construction Skills Network report. The government’s…

Chris Kirby-Turner is a partner in the construction & engineering team at Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP It’s common knowledge that construction is facing a sustained period of exceptional price volatility. As a result, it is not uncommon for a party to reach a level of contractual risk that they…

Steve Marr is compliance director at distributor SIG and interim CEO of Construction Product Information Ltd “It’s hard to build safe buildings without safe products,” said Geoffrey Brown of the Office for Product Safety and Standards at last month’s Building a Safer Future Conference. It’s hard to argue with that.…

Amy Pairman is an associate at Brodies LLP The recent case of Elements (Europe) Ltd v FK Building Ltd will have practical, day-to-day implications regarding the timings around interim-payment applications. “The court said that the law does not deal in fractions of a day” The case relates to an interim…

Nigel Barnes is head of life science, EMEA, at construction consultancy Linesight “Can you give me a rough cost?” is a question I was often asked in a previous role as head of engineering at pharma multinational GSK. Refuse to speculate and you’re being – at best – unhelpful. But…

Graham Harle is chief executive of Gleeds Worldwide With soaring inflation and the escalating cost of materials dominating the headlines of late, another issue has been quietly chipping away at the foundation of the UK’s construction sector: an increasing shortage of labour. Even the Home Office is reportedly looking at…

Elizabeth Hardwick-Smith is group people and culture director at Pick Everard This year’s Budget centred around getting those who want to work, back to work. With extended childcare support for one-to-two-year-olds being the headline announcement, there is now a great opportunity to tackle one of construction’s biggest challenges – improving…

David Medcraft is a partner at property consultancy TFT Our industry is subject to tightening legislation on both energy efficiency and safety: from the beginning of April 2023, commercial buildings beneath an EPC rating of ‘E’ cannot legally be let. Also this month, the new Building Safety Regulator will be…