Response to an article in Construction News by Steven Barker about energy
Construction News1 March 2010
Response to an article by Steven Barker, Senior Partner, Robison Low Francis
I was reading my copy of this week’s Construction News and they are running a campaign under a banner of “vote for construction”. They include in the article various messages to MPs. Nr 7 talks about energy and I respond as follows:
“I read with interest about your vote for construction campaign and wish you all the luck with it because you are going to need it. Successive Governments of all persuasion have failed to fully recognise the significant contribution construction makes to the economy as a whole and given the forthcoming election and waves of bad news on the public purse I doubt whether anyone will get a lot of sense out of Westminster until someone there has the sense to stand up and think about the long term future rather than what their expenses may be next month.
A particularly pertinent message in the article this week was regarding energy and I would like to add something to the debate if I may. Whilst every sane person understands that the future of energy must lay with nuclear and other types of power provision we must first unlock the Planning system and blast the NIMBY’s out of the water for the greater good of all. Furthermore because of the very strict emission targets set by the EU, which I bet are only being adhered to by us with the French, Italians and others either ignoring or paying lip service, a number of coal fired power stations are scaling down towards closure and this will, in my opinion, have a devastating affect on the energy supplies across the UK beyond 2015 because lights will be turned off!
So what should we do about this? Extend the life of the coal stations by utilising carbon capture technology and in parallel deal with the need for new technologies coming on stream to secure the future energy requirements of the UK.
Whilst I am on a roll your point 8 regarding transport is very well made and I would ask why are we dithering about signing off on the high speed rail links that are desperately needed and will increase speed and efficiencies to all and therefore increase our competitive advantage in business terms; unlike our French neighbours who did not mess around with either transport links or Nuclear energy as they saw the need and dealt with it, riding rough shot over petty local interests for the good of national interest.”