04 July 2013
Read our MD Julie White’s thoughts on the Government’s Spending Review below.
“For our sector, the big news to come out of the 2013 Government spending review was the announcement that there would be a £9.5 billion increase in capital spending on transport.
“However, as always, the devil is in the detail and we need to move on from talking about these projects to actually taking some action. There are countless shovel-ready projects which, once given the green light from Government, will provide a major boost to the construction industry.
“HS2 and the improvement to the A14 are areas of particular interest to me – so it was encouraging that the Chancellor underlined the government’s commitment to getting HS2 off the ground as soon as possible.
“We heard from Danny Alexander that the planned A14 improvements would be moved ahead two years to 2016 but in my opinion that is still too far away!
“There was also news that there would also be spending to improve the M1 junction at Long Eaton / Rugby. We should be getting these projects underway now as we won’t feel the benefit until these projects are actually underway.
“A commitment of £10 billion to improving decaying schools was also heartening for contractors.
“It was intriguing to hear that the Government would consider selling off land to local areas for beneficial development and it will be interesting to see what the effect of this might be. Again the detail will be key.
“A piece of news which really caught my attention was the announcement that there will be more funds for apprenticeships. Again, the announcement was lacking in detail. But as an avid supporter of apprentices I would say that anything to help increase their popularity and accessibility, with both businesses and potential apprentices, is to be welcomed.
“The announcement that there would be £3bn capital spending on new houses is, of course, to be welcomed. But while this creates work, these are not necessarily the scale of projects the construction industry is crying out for.
“The big infrastructure projects will be the real key to kick-starting the construction sector economy once again but it appears we still have a wait on our hands before these projects actually get off the ground.”
Julie’s comments were picked up by industry publication Construction News and can be read here.
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