The Voice of Authority - How can councils help tackle construction challenges post Covid-19?

The Voice of Authority: How can

councils help tackle construction challenges post Covid-19?

In partnership with:

14 May 2020 Post webinar report

Post Webinar Report How can councils help tackle construction challenges post Covid-19?

14 May 2020

In partnership with: Chair: Toby Fox Managing director, 3Fox Panelists Cllr Keith Ferry

Pat Hayes

Deputy leader, Harrow

Managing director, Be First

Council

Shifa Mustafa

Chris Tredget

Executive director place,

Managing director for London

London Borough of Croydon

and the East, Willmott Dixon

OVERVIEW Sponsored by Willmott Dixon, this episode saw the panel discuss the challenges currently faced by the construction industry, and the role that local authorities might play in supporting the industry during the recovery.

The discussion ranged widely and this report contains a sample and summary. Watch the webinar in full at thevoiceofauthority.co.uk, and subscribe to stay updated on future episodes.

Post Webinar Report DISCUSSION SUMMARY Leading the discussion, Chris Tredget detailed the scale of the challenges faced

by Willmott Dixon. In total Willmott Dixon

I visit my sites and my teams, and I feel more comfortable on a building site than I do in a supermarket. Because there's a good level of control there.

can have around 75 to 80 projects on the

Chris Tredget

ground at any one time, a fifth of which

Tredget might be responsible for. Currently, he has 18 live projects on the ground and 20 in preconstruction – all of which at the moment have staff working on them from home. Following the initial announcement of a lockdown the number of people remaining on their sites plummeted - on some they went from “having 120 people down to 30” – but numbers are beginning to increase again, as guidance for social distancing measures are drafted and implemented.

That’s the interesting thing post-crisis, is this the opportunity to say ‘yes we do need to embrace more modern methods of working?

Pat Hayes

For Willmott Dixon, one of the biggest challenges currently in adapting sites to accommodate for social distancing is the provision of welfare facilities. Pat Hayes praised the speed with which the

industry responded. “I think the industry was actually very good in terms of being ahead of the government and getting people to start working from home,” he said. Hayes also mentioned the sensible approaches towards annual international property event MIPIM that were taken in the very early days of the pandemic, at a time when the government was still vacillating on its advice regarding foreign travel. Cllr Keith Ferry criticised the lack of communication from the government on the subject of construction. “As government guidance never came forward, we’re still wondering whether we should have shut down or whether we hadn’t.”

In terms of what councils can do to help the construction industry, Cllr Ferry spoke about the potential for increased flexibility in planning, to allow for buildings currently in the process

Post Webinar Report Getting developers talking to each other…is an innovation.

Being able to facilitate bringing people together to solve these common problems, I think is one of the great things to come out of this sorry crisis.

Cllr Keith Ferry

of being built that may not in the post Covid-19 world remain suitable or viable.

Cllr Ferry also asked for increased dialogue - calling on developers to “come and talk to us”. Local authorities function as nexus points for engaging and communicating

with a raft of organizations – “the police, the NHS, the fire brigade, community organizations”, to name a few, and experienced ward councillors who know their residents, can help developers by offering “advice to get over the problems of engaging with the local population.” Hayes also agreed that the public sector has a role to play in helping support the industry, but thought that the government might get more “bang for their buck” for any more money they might want to invest post Covid-19 by putting it through the public sector. In such a case, “this may be a big opportunity… to really increase the supply of affordable housing quickly.”

Shifa Mustafa also built on this point, saying that in her borough of Croydon, the sites with clear end users are the ones that have continued to progress – many of which are public sector.

Hayes added to this, “How did Roosevelt get America out of that depression in the 1930s? It was the new deal, which was around public works…Why can’t we invest more in additional public transport capacity? Suddenly, when you’ve got a socially distanced railway, HS2, which is about increasing capacity as much as increasing speed, it seems very sensible – Crossrail ditto.

All of these projects would provide a big injection for the construction sector and everything that goes with it, but would also provide increased transport capacity.”

The problems that have been cited to Mustafa by the big developers working in Croydon have related to supply chains, as well as issues related to the new ways of working. She said: “Timescales are slowing down because they can’t have as many staff on site.” There also have been staff shortage issues – “but only in relation to the final bits of construction, the finishing and specialist pieces.” Mustafa cited a number of ways in which local authorities can help the

Post Webinar Report sector. In the short term, they can help with enforcement and with the logistics of getting people to work, and already Croydon has done much around parking provision. In the medium term then Mustafa cited relationships with suppliers, confidence and viability. Tredget agreed with these as issues. He expressed his confidence in the ability of the private sector to implement and maintain social distancing on site, but conceded that the biggest thing he is concerned about looking to the future is a “stuttering pipeline – that’s what makes me nervous”. Hayes raised the spectre of Brexit, referring to the impact that it too might have upon a sector already struggling with supply chain disruption. “We’re now in a position where people have used up some of the stocks they had set aside for Brexit. I think there’s a real issue there…That will hit us as soon as we come out of the current Covid crisis.”

Much has been made of the role of MMC in the recovery, and there was discussion to this end during the session. Mustafa claimed

Councils have started to do things they’ve never done before – which includes influencing supply chains.

that while MMC might help attract people to

Shifa Mustafa

the industry, being more appealing to young people, she doesn’t think that it’s “any cheaper” than traditional methods. Tredget likewise weighed up pros and cons, but in light of Covid-19 did concede that the factory environment negates certain challenges that the virus now poses in terms of maintaining a contagion-free environment. Hayes was strongly in favour of MMC, and called on major contractors to seize upon the opportunity that Covid-19 presents to embrace the technology.

Post Webinar Report HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q&A Waltham Forest has announced closure of parking bays to improve pedestrian and cycling social distancing. What else can councils do to help businesses get 'up and running'?

Daren Nathan, partnership director, London Square

Contractors will need to supervise social distancing more than previous supervision levels would have required . How will this affect site roles for contractor supervision in the future?

Gerry O’Connell, managing QS, Sisk

Could there be a relaxation of planning rules - so that certain types of housing such as for homelessness & key workers come forward as a new class of permitted development?

Colin Noble, sales director, Future-Built

Post Webinar Report POLLS AND INSIGHT A number of polls were carried out over the course of the webinar surveying the audience of industry professionals.

Should construction workers be afforded key worker status?

Unsure 22%

Strongly disagree 2%

Yes 60%

No 18%

“I feel confident that we can effectively implement and maintain social distancing and other necessary measures on site for the prevention of contagion.� Do you agree?

What is the biggest challenge currently facing the industry?

Disagree 21%

Strongly agree 11%

Agree 49%

Neither agree no disagree 17%

Has Covid-19 caused your organisation to rethink how it sources its materials and structures its supply chains?

Other 5% Supply chains 19%

Market slowdown 38%

Cashflow 23% Protecting against contagion on site 38%

Not relevant 27% Yes 49%

Unsure 16% No 8%

What does recovery look like for the UK’s core cities?

21 May, 11:00 – 12:00 The UK’s economic recovery will rely on the ability of major cities to bounce back. What is needed to ensure that happens? How important is development generally, and housebuilding in particular, to the core cities recovery from Covid-19? How has the pandemic affected planning and growth? What are our core cities doing to overcome the challenges and stimulate growth and development?

Speakers: Chris Murray Director, Core Cities UK Elliott Lipton CEO, ​First Base Marvin Rees Mayor of Bristol

REGISTER HERE In partnership with: For more information, or to be involved in future episodes, contact: finn@3foxinternational.com