We sat down for the first time with members of our Editorial Board to get the latest insight on the UK construction industry and delve a little deeper into current concerns surrounding the sector
Here at PBC Today & BIM Today we’ve recently appointed an Editorial Board. The Editorial Board members are a selection of the industry’s experts, including James Prestwich, Head of Policy at the National Housing Federation, Paul Wilkins, Chief Executive at Butler & Young, Jackie Maginnis, Chief Executive at MPBA, Andrew Carpenter, Chief Executive at Structural Timber Association and Richard Saxon, CBE.
Our Editors met with each of the board members at the glitzy Grosvenor House in London to sit down and discuss the current issues we face in the construction industry. Not surprisingly, the housing crisis reared its head throughout the conversation and offsite construction took its rightful place centre stage.
Jackie Maginnis, Chief Executive at MPBA, commented: “It’s important from my point of view to ensure that people understand the benefits of offsite construction and what it means to the volumetric and modular industry.”
Check out one of our previous articles where Maginnis discusses more on modular and offsite construction.
Of course, the housing crisis is a topic on everybody’s lips and was naturally discussed. While speaking with James Prestwich, Head of Policy at the National Housing Federation about how the housing sector was important to the UK construction industry as a whole, he said: “We’re the trade body that represents housing associations so we represent organisation across England. A key challenge that we touched on today [during the meeting] is – how do we deliver the government and sector supply agenda without disregarding the importance of quality and building safety?”
Paul Wilkins, Chief Executive at Butler & Young, commented on what is currently of utmost importance in construction: “My interest is in building regulations and building control. The important things for us at the moment are the Hackitt implementation, looking at the performance gap between buildings as designed and how they perform, BIM, and offsite construction.”
Richard Saxon, CBE further discussed his concerns regarding the industry: “My main concerns at the moment are specifically the applications of new technologies in the industry to get it past the blockages that they had regularly come up with. Blockages to collaboration in particular, productivity and to the lack of trust that pervades the industry.”
Andrew Carpenter, Chief Executive at Structural Timber Association, added his thoughts on how structural timber is important in the construction industry: “It’s important to try and improve the performance of the UK construction industry through collaborative working and integrated supply chains, lean processes and so on. There’s a huge emphasis at the moment on offsite construction and digital technologies which is, if you like the areas that really are inextricably linked through everything I do.
“My passion is about improving the performance of the UK construction industry, but actually to provide an industry that is better for the people that are working within it.
“With the BIM4Housing, obviously that’s very specific. That’s about driving digital technologies through the housing sector.”
With so much to discuss, including skills deficiency, the Hackitt review, the rise of modern methods of construction, digital technologies and the housing crisis – we can’t wait for more meetings with our Editorial Board to get the inside scoop from the experts on what’s really impacting the construction sector.
