north, which we believe will continue. Peter Stone MCIOB, managing director central & south, GB Building Solution

It’s my birthday on the 20th, so I’ll be taking the day off and trying to fi t

celebrations in with monitoring coverage of the

Vox pop What will you be doing on 20 October, the day of the Comprehensive Spending Review?

I am being sent to Coventry — to talk to Sainsbury’s about biomass energy production allied to the

burial of charcoal, a process

which Professor James Lovelock has described as perhaps our only chance to avert catastrophic climate change. We are consuming naturally-renewing resources at a rate 40% greater than the planet can regenerate them. I am interested in a Comprehensive Spending Review, but one for our

planetary budget. Big Society, Big Planet. Pooran Desai, co-founder, BioRegional

I will probably be in the pub with the rest of the team for a serious review of the spending cuts – I think that’s taking the results in

the spirit they should be. But it really is the most important day for the industry for the next year, if not two years, and there’s no question it will have a serious impact on workloads next year. As has happened before, there have been enough leaks prior to publication that most people are already factoring cuts

We need to promote industry Nick Margetts, via website I agree with Chris Blythe (CM September) that the pendulum has swung between extremes of boom and bust so quickly the industry hasn’t been able to satisfactorily plan for the future. If we are to get people to come into this industry and retain some of the people already in it, we need to stabilise spending in the coming years with some cohesive policies. If we don’t, history will keep repeating itself. I have been in this

into their strategies and I think most of the impact will come from any surprises contained in the report. I’m working on the Olympic Athletes’ Village, which has been described as an oasis in the desert, or a cruise liner cruising through the recession, but we’re by no means recession proof. Peter Jacobs FCIOB, operations director, Bovis Lend Lease

I’m thinking about sticking my head in a bucket, or putting on a tin hat and hiding in a bunker. I’ve

checked my diary and on the

20th I’ll actually be taking my wife to hospital then going to a client/supplier meeting, so its business as usual. Seriously though, we think we’ve got a reasonable fl avour of what public sector capital spend might disappear and we won’t be over exposed to it as we’re a small company with a range of work streams.

We have a fi ve-year plan, which will

focus on expanding work around our current long-term relationships in health care, which we see as a continuing market, and our other smaller-value public sector education refurbishment projects in the

industry for 32 years and I remember the 1991 recession. It took years to get skills back in the industry, and some we never got back. Sadly, people don’t see construction as a stable career, and we currently have some of the highest unemployment levels. I understand that the present

government’s hands are tied on fi nance and spending, but we in the CIOB must take the opportunity in the future, with other bodies, to tell government loud and clear what is required and how we can work with them.

We’re going to be at a legal seminar that day, as we’re bidding for a big FM contract from the Ministry of Justice. Everyone’s poised for opportunities in the new low- carbon economy, so any announcements about the Green Investment Bank will send a message to the industry about whether or not they’re really serious about the green economy. It would be hard to justify setting the industry targets on the one hand and cutting back on funding for one of the most important mechanisms to achieve them. David Stockdale FCIOB, director, Enterprise

Contact us Do you have an opinion on any of this month’s articles? Email: construction- manager@atom publishing.co.uk

Corrections • Paul Morrell, the chief construction adviser, has indeed been invited to contribute to the government’s Sebastian James Review of the school building programme. We were unfortunately unable to update our interview with Morrell (CM September) with this information before going to press. • The photograph used on page 8 in September, was one of the fi nalists in the Art of Building competition, and should have been credited to Paul Stephenson.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | OCTOBER 2010 | 11

Illustration by Tim Ellis

spending review. It’s really a case of “wait and see”, we can’t really second-guess what’s going to be said or what the impact will be. I think most people are worried about cuts to work already under way. I’m sure lots of projects will be cut, and it will almost certainly affect us. Whatever happens it will be a case of getting out there and making the best of whatever the situation is.

Donald Loe MCIOB, director, FK Howard

We’ll be gathered round our computer screens, probably on the BBC website. We’ll be looking at the announcements as they come out one by one, and seeing if they’re as bad as we thought, or perhaps not as bad. Then it’ll be a case of dealing with it, and in the fi rst instance communicating among our teams how it will effect the different market sectors. John Frankiewicz, chief executive, Willmott Dixon Capital Works