Steve Barker responds to Building regarding article "Construction will be in recession till 2011

04 February 2010

I found this report from the Construction Skills Network (CSN) that the construction industry will not emerge from recession until 2011 a depressing read. Sitting back and accepting the current state of affairs is not the solution to pull ourselves out of recession our industry needs to sit up, and with support from the Government, tackle the problem head on.

The current economic climate has triggered a necessary streamlining, both within firms and throughout the industry's disciplines. In my view it is the smarter and leaner businesses practices who will survive the downturn and be in a good position to take advantage of the upswing when it comes. Furthermore, the more forward thinking firms who have taken a proactive approach and considered alternative markets, such as international expansion, will begin to prosper through 2010 and beyond.

However, the difficulty is that while the downturn continues, some decisions will be forced by market conditions and out of our hands. It is the Government's role to assist our industry out of the recession at a faster rate than predicted by the CSN. It is time that the Government actually starts working to support construction instead of petty electioneering against opposition parties and stalling programmes of work they professed to believe in previously but suddenly, because of a looming election, they leave us all in no mans land.

Steven Barker, senior partner, Robinson Low Francis