Midlands NCC Awards

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am Mark Farrar, Director of Corporate Services, and in August I will take over the reins from Peter Lobban to become Chief Executive of ConstructionSkills.

I am tremendously proud to be with you today for this great occasion, to be part of the occasion and add to the pride in this room for us all.  As students, teachers, parents and finally industry representatives, we have once again worked together to ensure that the National Construction College has delivered another first class group of graduates. Congratulations; I know that you will all make a positive contribution to Britain’s flourishing construction industry. And I’d like to say a special thank you to all the mums and dads who have supported the students during their training. Please put your hands together for the parents and families. 

We already have the best qualified generation of construction workers that the United Kingdom has ever seen. Today we can celebrate this year’s entrants joining the construction workforce at a time when the challenges facing our country have never been larger and more exciting.

ConstructionSkills is immensely proud that, ever since it was founded in 1964, it has retained and, indeed, increased the support of employers across our industry. Working directly with them we have developed the training provision to meet their needs and goals. However, this is no time for complacency. We have thrived on the challenges presented to us over the last 41 years, but we must now seek to embrace the opportunities that lie before us.

And these opportunities are huge, exciting and inspiring, but also challenging and demanding. There is much to do.

Construction is not only an important industry, it is a great industry. We turnover £179billion a year and contribute 9% to the British GDP. We currently employ 2.2million workers – and you, as qualified, skilled construction workers will add to this number. You are joining the construction industry at a good time. We need to increase the number of qualified workers in our industry now – more than ever before because there is growing demand for your skills.

Construction is about to face the global spotlight and our industry has been called upon to deliver buildings which are unique and iconic in their own way.

Let me give you some perspective. Work is already underway to construct the Olympic Village, which London will host in 2012. I am sure that there are workers in this room who will be called upon to share their skills and expertise as the development continues.

But it’s not just the Olympics where our skills are being given a showcase. Britain is buzzing with development. The Government has committed to a £16billion building programme for schools, hospitals and roads over the next 4 years and there are also some 7,500 significant new construction projects in the pipeline that are due to start between now and 2011, to the value of £190billion. 

But that’s just the national picture. In the Midlands specifically, there is a growth in the non-residential, industrial and commercial sectors. There is plenty of work around the Building Schools for the Future programme and £300m is being invested in other education projects, which includes a £70m contract for West Nottinghamshire College.

In the private commercial sector, there is a development to create two large PFI hospital schemes – one for Derby NHS Trust, which is worth £312m and another for Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, which is valued at £326m. These add to the £700m redevelopment of the Broadmarsh shopping centre in Nottingham, which has recently been announced.

These are just the big projects – in addition, there are many other smaller projects, such as a £50m Visitor Centre for Nottingham City Council.

We have all seen reports on the news recently and heard the talk about the “credit crunch”, and the affects of this are being seen nationally in the house building sector, which there has been a slowdown. However, in most parts, construction remains buoyant and, findings from our CSN research tells us that the Midlands is expected to fare better than many other regions during the economic slowdown because of its central location.

This is great news for the Midlands and it means that we need to find 4,530 new recruits every year for the next 5 years to meet the demand and deliver the projects that I outlined earlier.

But we aren’t just interested in numbers. We are also concerned with making sure that we recruit the right calibre of students and apprentices. These are the people who will drive this industry forward through innovation, dedication and commitment.

We are enormously proud of the high quality training that is provided through the National Construction College – and especially the young people graduating today.

Before I handover to my colleague Gary, I would like to share some specific thoughts with our graduates. I hope that as you leave here, you will take with you not only the skills that you have developed during your training, but also a sense of pride in your achievements and in the exciting and forward looking industry that you have joined, where your skills are in real demand.

I congratulate you on your achievement so far, and wish you every success as you set out on a long and lucrative career.

Ours is a historic industry. It has quite literally, built Britain. It has built our homes, our hospitals, our schools, our roads, our railways, our workplaces, our airports, our power stations, indeed, everything constructed, including our greatest cathedrals and historic buildings. You have the opportunity to do the same. These buildings and landmarks that you develop will be here long after you have gone and it will give you great and lasting pride when you play your part in their construction.

You will have helped to construct our nation. And that is a very fine and honourable achievement. Good luck to you all. You have made an excellent choice.

It is now a great pleasure for me to handover to Gary Derrick, Centre Manager for National Construction College Midlands, who will talk about our work at the NCC.