Wrightstyle cautiously welcomes PM’s pledge

3 Jul 2020

Wrightstyle, the Devizes-based supplier of advanced glazing systems, has cautiously welcomed the government’s pledge to ‘build, build, build’.

But the company, while welcoming many of the prime minister’s plans, sees ‘a fundamental gap between rhetoric and real commitment’.

The PM has promised to build hundreds of thousands of new homes nationwide, as well as invest in major infrastructure projects.

The prime minister likened his £5 billion pledge to US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1930’s New Deal, which helped to lift the USA from the Great Depression.

However, Wrightstyle points to the latest report from the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), and says the government is continuing to underestimate the importance of the sector.

The CIOB report suggests the economic influence of the UK construction sector is almost double that of officially recorded figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

The Real Face of Construction 2020 report says the sector accounts for about 6% of UK economic output and provides employment for 2.3 million people.

That employment total, about 7.1% of the UK workforce, does not include the many hundreds of thousands employed within other related businesses.

Those include everyone from architects and engineers, to companies such as builders’ merchants and plant hire providers.

The prime minister said he wants to use the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to ‘to build the homes, to fix the NHS, to tackle the skills crisis, to mend the indefensible gap in opportunity and productivity and connectivity between the regions of the UK’.

But Wrightstyle believes because the economy shrank by 20% in April alone, the government’s pledge does not go nearly far enough.

It supports the CIOB’s report that argues if all aspects of the design and construction process were included in government figures, construction GDP could be close to double in size.

Jane Embury, director at Wrightstyle (pictured), commented: “As a sector, we have the skills and capacity to create the jobs and new opportunities that this country so badly needs,”

“But we don’t believe that the government is going nearly far enough in putting in place the new investments that are needed to turn promises into promises fulfilled.

“While we therefore welcome the government’s pledge for investment, we believe it won’t deliver the outcomes the government is seeking that that there is a fundamental gap between rhetoric and real commitment.”

Wrightstyle,
Unit 2&7 Banda Trading Estate,
Nursteed Road,
Devizes,
United Kingdom,
SN10 3DY

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