Roy Wakeman attends Strategic Forum Meeting With CCA

BWF Vice-President attended a recent meeting of the Strategic Forum for Construction part of the Construction Products Association delegation.  The meeting saw the first encounter between the Forum and the new Chief Construction Adviser, Paul Morrell. After the meeting, Roy observed, “Whilst part of the normal schedule of meetings for the Forum, it really was set up for Paul Morrell to introduce himself and promote his early views and strategy going forward. In essence his take on the industry is one of fragmentation and without a cohesive plan.  He likened it to the motor industry where he believes the plan is efficient, well known and their industry almost has a single voice. He said he was going to concentrate on two fronts: one, uniting the industry; and two, creating the atmosphere for integrated supply chains. He will chair the Client Construction Group. He sees a massive opportunity in the low carbon arena and wants to deliver for Government in the next two years a zero carbon School for the same cost as one of today. There was open discussion around these points and the main contributions came in support of the integration of the industry although Alan Ritchie, General Secretsry of UCATT, tried to mug the meeting by insisting on more government intervention to protect the work force from the tyrannical employers! For our part ,we pushed on the low carbon housing opportunity and pushing the implementation of the Code for Sustainable Homes and Energy rated products. I’m not sure if the meeting – or for that matter Paul Morrell – will produce any action.  Only time will tell.”