Derek Bostock has been the FMB National President since September 2010. It is a position he will hold for two years and here he delivers his New Year message to members.
2010 was another difficult year for the construction industry and in the current economic climate, it is even more important that members focus on each and every opportunity available to them. The main focus of the FMB is to support its members in every way possible, which we do by working hard to promote you to the consumer and provide you with added business benefits (such as discounted business banking from Santander and free legal protection insurance from DAS). But much of our work for you is carried out behind the scenes, did you know, for example, that we produce an FMB ezine every month which is sent to 23,000 consumers? All these consumers have requested the ezine because they are considering building works and they have visited the FMB website. The purpose of this is to direct consumers to you, through our web-based Find A Builder service.
BUILDING FOR SUCCESS
Today’s builders face new challenges not least how best to survive the worst economic crisis in decades. Coupled with this is the challenge of how to adapt our buildings to enable them to withstand the effects of climate change and create a low carbon built environment. The built environment that FMB builders have helped to create and maintain has a key role to play by helping to create greener, more energy efficient buildings which will play their part in reducing the UK’s carbon emission levels. The link between the creation and maintenance of all our buildings is you, the local builder.
Against this background we presented our policy programme for the new Parliament and it focused on three key themes which we believe will help the UK weather the current economic storm and create the conditions for long-term success. First, is the need to improve and develop the skills base in the construction sector; secondly, the need for a series of measures to promote a greener more sustainable built environment; and thirdly, the need to create an environment in which small building fi rms can thrive and prosper and play their part in rebuilding the economic success of the UK.
MEETING THE UK’S HOUSING DEMAND
Last year (2010) we commissioned research from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) which revealed that re-using small empty sites of up to two hectares could easily meet the UK’s housing demand without building on green field land and should be coupled with reclaiming and re-modelling empty buildings and upgrading existing homes.
The report, ‘Housing Futures: Our Homes and Communities’, found that the small and medium sized builder would have to ‘keep running to stay on top’ of the amount of retrofitting work there will be for the next 30 years. The retrofitting market for small builders offers, the report says, ‘a very rosy future painted green’, as homeowners realise the savings that can be made through making their homes more energy efficient. To capitalise on this growth market, the report calls for higher standards within the building industry, particularly the 200,000 SMEs which make up 93 percent of building industry. The report also found that accreditation and Competent Person Schemes enhance the status of the building industry, as long as they are linked to real experience and hands-on training.
One of the authors of the report, Professor Anne Power, Professor of Social policy at LSE said: "We need to modernise our housing stock, reclaim and remodel empty buildings, fit new homes into small spaces within existing communities, and do all this with a fraction of the energy, materials and waste of the current building industry. This approach should generate many new jobs and skills in existing neighbourhoods; it should support training, apprenticeships and accreditation schemes; it should foster a new eco-retrofit supply chain. It will be quickly embraced by go-ahead small builders who know which side their bread is buttered on!"
CUT THE VAT CAMPAIGN
VAT has now risen to 20 percent. The FMB is a founder member of the ‘Cut the VAT’ Coalition which believes that reducing VAT to five percent for all maintenance and home improvement work would help the Government achieve its target of cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. It would benefit millions of UK homeowners by getting rid of cowboy builders, helping those who cannot afford vital repairs to their homes, bringing empty properties back into use and protecting the countryside. On 10th March 2009 the Council of European Finance Ministers (Ecofin) announced that it would allow EU Member States to permanently reduce VAT to five percent all maintenance and home improvement work. Since then our campaign has focused on lobbying the UK Government to implement the cut.
LOOKING FORWARD TO OPPORTUNITIES
This year, the Government’s ‘Green Deal’ to retrofit the UK’s building stock offers a massive opportunity to members.
Research commissioned by the FMB from Oxford University tells us that this work could be worth between £3.5 and £6.5billion a year. Local SME builders are best placed to do this work but they will need to ensure they are fully trained and recognised as being able to do the work. The FMB is working hard to ensure its members are ready to tackle the massive retrofit market and is working with the Government to devise a Competent Person Scheme to prove the skills and ability of SMEs wanting to carry out this work."
There is significant danger though that the increase in the rate of VAT to 20 percent will cost the very jobs required to deliver the Green Deal. Independent research on VAT shows that the £45.5 billion a year domestic RMI market will fall by two percent as a direct impact of the VAT increase. By removing this £910 million from the market will result in 7,500 jobs being lost from a sector that will need to grow massively in the run in to Green Deal if the ambition for it is to refurbish 26 million homes over the next 20 years.
We have to face the fact that in many parts of the UK our industry may be facing a double dip recession or at the very least flat lining. We have identified that there is this massive retrofit market that needs to be addressed and we are trying to make sure that FMB members have the knowledge and the skills, and are there on the starting blocks for when the Government says: "Things need to happen."
Rest assured that membership of the FMB gives you a clear business advantage, we will do all we can to support you though the year ahead and we will continue to provide you with relevant member benefi ts and services.
Just visit www.fmb.org.uk/member-benefits to remind yourself what we already provide for you. I wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2011 and that you come out of this recession in an even stronger position than when it began.
