The Infrastructure Podcast: Episode 29

Guest: Mark Reynolds, Group Chairman and Chief Executive, Mace and Construction Leadership Council co-chair.

Modernising UK construction

In this podcast we talk about the need to modernise UK construction.

I have been writing about this sector for close to three decades and this subject has been a consistent and infuriatingly repetitive issue.

A bit of background to set the scene around three decades of reports an initiatives. 

In 1994, the Latham Review kicked things off and set out the need for collaboration and single teams, to boost quality, reduce disputes and improve margins. 

It was quickly followed by the Egan Review in 1998 which also highlighted the need to rethink construction with stronger client leadership and more collaboration.

This led to the Movement for Innovation, and the 2001 Strategic Forum for Construction who’s 2002 report Accelerating Change set a path towards greater use of digital technology in the industry eventually leading to the mandating of the use of BIM on public project a decade later.

Then came the Wolstenholme Review urging us in 2009 to “Never Waste a Good Crisis”.

And the establishment of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) in 2013 to oversee Construction 2025, a new industry strategy targeted with reducing cost and carbon, accelerating delivery and increasing exports.

In 2016 we had the Farmer Review, aptly titled Reform or Die which set out ten recommendations for fundamental change. 

And in 2017 the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s Transforming Infrastructure Performance report again urged change through use of off-site fabrication and digital technology.

The perilous state of the industry was laid bar in 2018 by the Hackett report into the 2017 Grenfell Fire. This underlined the systemic, ethical and professional failures which sat at the heart of tragedy in west London.

Then came Covid, the drive towards a net zero future, and the battle to cope with rampant inflation across the building and construction material sector and the chronic lack of skills needed to drive the sector – not helped of course by the impact of Brexit.

It is fair to say that the industry lurches from crisis to crisis. So to discuss the challenges that lie ahead, my guest today is Mark Reynolds, co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council and, in his spare time, also Group Chairman and Chief Executive of global consultancy and construction firm Mace.

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