// Opinion
What does 2021 look like for the scaffolding industry? “To survive the challenges of this year, I believe we need to be creative and collaborative,” says Des Moore, TRAD Group CEO and NASC President (2017–19)
I
couldn’t have imagined, this time last year, that I would be writing about an industry that is challenged on every front. We were planning for the potential consequences of Brexit on the business, of course, and we already knew there was an issue with workforce numbers. But the pandemic has thrown a number of new obstacles in our path, which will make for a 2021 that will require all our best efforts to navigate. NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM
First, it’s important to say that we face these challenges with positivity – there’s no other way to do business. Our enquiries are consistent with past years, although our own orders and those of our customers are definitely coming into the business more slowly. We have noticed that projects are taking longer to complete – partially because of lockdown and Covid-safe working rules affecting speed on-site – and partly because there’s a delay in getting materials to site. This slowdown is reflected across the construction industry, so where we deal with sub-contractors, we are seeing orders slowing down as it takes longer to get onto sites. There are also restrictions in place on sites to comply with social distancing requirements, thereby limiting available labour on-site. But most construction sites are still active, where they were not in the first lockdown in March 2020, and this is great news for the industry in general. PREPARING FOR A SUMMER SPIKE Des Moore working at home during lockdown
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As we move out of the current lockdown restrictions, the construction sector is widely expecting to see a spike in activity in May and June, with the exception of the London market,
