
Construction, the EU and Brexit
When it comes to Brexit it doesn’t matter if you are a contractor, a client, an architect or any other construction professional. None of us have a clue what is in store for us on March 29th. In fact the waters are even muddier following the various votes in the Houses of Parliament over the last few days.
March can be a quiet period for many of us because clients have usually spent their budgets and are actively preparing their spending plans for the new financial year. However, and rather bizarrely, we are experiencing a large increase in the number of sales enquires from businesses who are based overseas. For example we have been contacted recently by the following:
- Canadian main contractor constructing a factory within the M25
- Italian PM working on retail schemes in London
- Polish contractor refurbishing properties in the north
- Spanish contractor fitting out units on a national scale
- Turkish services contractor working on a new medical facility
- American fashion house entering the UK market looking for support with CDM
Clearly this is a message that not all non-UK businesses are sceptical about entering our marketplace.
All the above enquiries were based on the businesses wanting to do things right. They were all aware of the stricter UK safety/compliance requirements; especially the more stringent enforcement of our legislation.
All fingers are crossed that we will continue to see more of this activity after the 29th.