Leadership Lost
Like so much of what was once "Great Britain" the UK's demolition and construction industry has been caught and overtaken.
There was a time when the United Kingdom was revered around the world. In fact, this nation was once known as Great Britain. It isn’t anymore. It’s not a fashion thing; nor is it semantics. The truth is, there is precious little Great left in Britain. In fact, some might even argue that the United Kingdom really isn’t that united any more either.
Despite being a relatively tiny island, our military forces were equally feared and admired around the world. With their ability to uphold justice with nothing more than a whistle and a stick, our police force was the envy of other countries. Our engineers, our manufacturing companies and our architects influenced not only their homeland but countries around the world.
We dug coal, forged steel, made cars, locomotives, and ships. We took giant technological leaps and we shaped the world.
Sadly, generations – including my own - have allowed all of that leadership, respect and influence to be eroded.
Our military is a shadow of its former self, starved of funding. Our police force is no longer on the beat; it is too busy taking care of paperwork and answering accusations of corruption, scandal, excessive use of force, and institutional racism.
Our road network is crumbling and we cannot see the construction of a railway line through to completion without suddenly getting cold feet.
Our education was once the benchmark to which others aspired. It gave us scientists, doctors, poets and writers. Great men and great women who would do great things.
While some of our universities are still sought after today, our mainstream education system has evolved into a ceaseless production line for the woke and the workshy.
With a few notable exceptions, we make precious little. And when we do undertake major construction, civil engineering or infrastructure projects, we now look to the French for their expertise, the Chinese for their money and Eastern Europe for the workers to bring it to fruition.
In fact, construction and demolition is one of the key areas in which our former global leadership has been most noticeably usurped.
According to a 2022 report, UK construction productivity almost halved during the 18 years starting in 2004. UK construction productivity lags behind those of Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Romania and Hungary.
The UK has the unenviable reputation of being one of the most expensive places in the world to build anything, while London has overtaken Geneva as the most expensive city in which to build.
In the sphere of demolition, we have seen the UK’s global dominance threatened and, in some cases, overtaken. There are now elite level contractors across Scandinavia, Europe, New Zealand and Australia that are a match for any British demolition firm.
This is not because these other countries have hit the afterburners to catch and, in some instances, overtake us. It is that we have hit the buffers. We have run aground on a never-ending skills shortage; been holed below the water line by endless bureaucracy; scuppered by excessive ego, conceit and self-regard.
Bureaucracy is a deterrent for innovation.
It is the field upon which creativity and progress perish.
The loss of leadership begins, appropriately, at the top. Not content with burdening demolition and construction companies with the suffocating weight of regulation and bureaucracy, consecutive governments have consistently failed to plan beyond the next General Election, causing widespread uncertainty and exacerbating the peaks and troughs of a notoriously up and down industry.
But the industry itself must shoulder some of the blame. If you are looking for advances in sustainability and environmental stewardship, you look to The Netherlands and the Nordic countries. If you are looking for giant leaps in electric powered machines, you look to China. If you look to the UK, you find an industry that has mastered the art of doing things the way they have always been done.
There are exceptions, of course. JCB’s pioneering work in the development of a hydrogen combustion engine is both notable and admirable. But they are the exception rather than the rule.
The UK is in a rut. Its demolition and construction sectors are equally bogged down. And we cannot rely on other nations to falter and to fall.
If we are to reclaim our position as global leaders, we need to do it ourselves. We need to stop resting on our laurels and surviving on past glories. And we need to accept - belatedly - that the way we have always done things was OK in the past; but it doesn’t cut it in the present. And that it will leave us trailing in the future.