A new All-Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment was formally launched at the Construction Industry Council’s annual summer reception, held at the Institution of Civil Engineers in July.
The Chairman of the new Group, Tony Baldry MP – a former Department of the Environment Minister responsible for construction – announced that the Group’s first act will be to establish a Commission on Excellence in the Built Environment, which will comprise Members of both Houses of Parliament, leaders of the professions and industry groups in membership of CIC and several independent contributors who will, he said, “challenge ideas, thinking and Expectation from outside the Parliamentary and construction boxes”.
Launching the new Group and Commission, Mr Baldry said that “given the country’s national indebtedness, the Government understandably is going to have concerns about affordability of building projects and clearly is going to want to look at what can be done to achieve best value for money”. For this reason, he indicated that the first enquiry for the Commission would be to look at how “on the one hand, we ensure good value for money, for public spending and public procurement of construction, and on the other hand, seek to achieve Excellence in the Built Environment”.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group’s primary remit will be to present an holistic, cohesive, over-arching view from all sectors of demand, planning, designing, constructing, managing and maintaining the built environment and its external landscape. It will seek to work closely with other All-Party groups representing particular sectors of the built environment, such as architecture & planning, climate change, infrastructure, building, highway maintenance and gas safety.
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