Hard times

Well, a fairly pessimistic answer is likely to come from any of the 71,000 people who have lost their jobs in construction over the past 12 months . In our attempt to answer the question, and as part of our special issue on austerity this week, we talked to some of those still working in the industry. Unsurprisingly, their comments make for grim reading, but we will monitor how they fare as the recession unfolds.

There don’t seem to be many reasons to be cheerful. The latest data from Experian shows that activity dropped to an all-time low in September. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel – the rate of decline is predicted to slow over the next few months, and the hotels, health and further education markets are still growing apace.

For larger UK players, the Middle East has proved to be a boon. There are signs that even this market is slowing down (a growing number of projects are being placed on hold and some developers are making redundancies), but British firms are still among the most high-profile and successful working in the region. Hopefully, the services of these firms, showcased this week in our inaugural Gulf Awards in Dubai, will continue to be in demand and provide much-needed jobs for organisations no longer able to find ways to occupy their employees in Britain. In response to the RSA’s question, it seems the economy is likely to emerge from these austere times with a far more international flavour than before.

Back to the future

British firms are still among the most high-profile and successful working in the Middle East

It was only a matter of time before the concept of paying to offset your carbon guilt expanded beyond flying. Car travel was an obvious first step, but Milton Keynes council’s move to apply the theory to housing deserves credit for its boldness. Like most efforts to think beyond the next six months, it seems irrelevant at the moment, especially as it depends on shell-shocked housebuilders stumping up more cash to secure planning permission. But this hasn’t put off the council, an organisation that has shown before that it is not afraid to be ambitious even in times of trouble – last year it introduced a roof tax, another controversial method of raising funds for communities affected by new developments.

And it may well have a point. Looking beyond the current recession, houses will still have to be built, and the idea of allowing developers to pay up, rather than leaving them to meet the onerous demands of building zero-carbon homes alone, has to be one worth exploring. Cyril Sweett calculated last year that the additional cost of building a zero-carbon home above the current Building Regulations could be as much as £19,000, so paying a charge of £400 a home instead will look appealing, and may encourage developers to keep building. It might just be the way to help the government meet its unenviable target of building not only more, but greener, homes through the downturn.

Stuart Macdonald, deputy editor