黑洞社区

The chairman of the Construction Leadership Council has said the government鈥檚 decision to relax the 2m social distancing rules will benefit housebuilders and smaller sites 鈥� but warned the industry the restrictions will not disappear overnight.

Firms have been struggling to get productivity on sites up to pre-covid levels as companies have been asked to stick to strict social distancing protocols.

One leading London developer told 黑洞社区 its sites were only operating at 50% while one major contractor said getting levels above 80% was proving to be a sticking point.

鈥淕etting up to 80% is straightforward enough, we can see a way to do it, but above that is really difficult. It requires investment, double shift patterns, making canteens bigger. The logistics of it all requires a hefty outlay.鈥�

Yesterday, the government announced a series of measures which will see the current 2m rule relaxed to 1m from 4 July.

While pubs, restaurants and hairdressers will be allowed to reopen, CLC boss Andy Mitchell said the further easing of lockdown measures would only have a mixed effect for the industry.

鈥淗ousing and smaller building works, where you don鈥檛 have the space in the first place, the 2m rule makes things a lot more difficult. This will open up more work types that they can do. I think we鈥檝e got to welcome it because it鈥檚 bound to help.鈥�

But he warned the protocols firms have spent weeks putting together will be here for months to come.

He added: 鈥淎re these rules going to disappear overnight? No. Are they with us for some time to come? For sure they are.鈥�

Yesterday, Prof Chris Whitty, the government鈥檚 chief medical adviser, warned: 鈥淚f people hear a distorted version of what鈥檚 being said, that says 鈥榯his is all fine now, it鈥檚 gone away鈥� and start behaving in ways that they normally would have before this virus happened, yes, we will get an uptick [in cases] for sure.鈥�

Mitchell said construction should not expect any special treatment from the government over further relaxing of social distancing guidelines 鈥� with people still being told to stay 2m apart 鈥渨here possible鈥�.

鈥淚 can鈥檛 see why someone in the construction industry is treated differently to any other industry,鈥� Mitchell said. 鈥淗ow can you have once stance for one industry and a different one for another?鈥�

Meanwhile, Mitchell said the industry should stick together 鈥� and not revert to bad practices as contract disputes inevitably arose from the coronavirus crisis.

Typical issues have centred on extension of time, who forks out for the extra cost of implementing social distancing procedures and who foots the bill when a job busts its deadline.

Mitchell, who is also boss of the Thames Tideway super sewer project, said: 鈥淣o-one鈥檚 going to win if we resort to conflict or resort to practices that are going to hurt other people.鈥�

But he admitted his words might fall on deaf ears: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all very well to take a high-minded stance on that but when firms are on the brink of going under it鈥檚 not always easy to do the right thing. As the reality continues, I can understand why it鈥檚 getting to be tough for people to continue doing the right thing.鈥�

More firms this week have announced redundancy programmes with Norwich contractor RG Carter and Birmingham demolition firm Coleman saying they were cutting jobs because of the slowdown caused by the covid-19 outbreak.