The IHBC, the UK’s professional body for built and historic environment conservation specialists, has welcomed the recent update from the construction industry training body, the CITB’s ‘Blueprint’ for 2014-18, but calls for more heritage awareness in any future data analysis.
IHBC Director Sean O’Reilly said: ‘This report contains crucial data on how central the care of our traditional buildings is to the construction industry and its training plans, and of course to our economy’s growth as a whole. But it is not easy to find.’
‘We need bodies such as the CITB to articulate the truth behind the data, and register just how central the care of older buildings is to our economy and our environment. That would be the best way for them to help partnerships supporting industry-critical initiatives, not least the IHBC-supported campaigns on VAT relief for repairs and the promotion of strategic investment in built heritage management and craft skills.’
‘Hopefully CITB’s future reports will bring out these perspectives much more clearly, not least as the proper care of our old buildings will play an increasingly central role in the 182,000 sector jobs that the research currently projects.’
‘If we look at the research figures for Scotland alone we can get some idea of just how important the care of our built heritage is to the country, and that’s in the face of the UK’s invidious tax regime that currently reigns. For example ‘Repair and Maintenance’ (R&M) in housing and non-housing sectors sits at 37% of the Scottish total, by far the largest segment! And there’s a similar picture across the UK analysis.’
‘And if we extract from these overall figures the 20% or so for traditional (pre-1919) buildings – a useful rule-of-thumb for Scotland – then 7.4% of the total construction market counted here is tied to the country’s traditional building stock. Hardly something the casual reader will come away with from this report!’
‘And also remember that, even then, these statistics exclude contracts under £0.5million. But that is the segment probably most generally occupied by R&M work on traditional buildings.’
‘These figures are key to understanding how to plan skills for growth. Of course, they are not the whole story of our heritage culture and industry, but they are a real indicator that can remind everyone of the part heritage plays in a successful economy and a successful culture. So it’s all the more important that, when we have statistics like these, we get the data interpretation as precise as the data itself! ‘
‘The IHBC is doing all we can to support skills and investment in the care of our built heritage – from innovative open-access web-learning tools such as the IHBC’s WebStarter, to research updates on VAT that will be launched in Westminster. But this is such a huge issue for everyone that small heritage bodies such as ours cannot be the only voice for change in the industry.’
‘Surely it’s time for more mainstream construction and development interests to recognise this!’
For the national and regional ‘Construction Skills Network’ reports see the links from: LINK
For more information and links on the updated research and the IHBC’s role in the Cut the VAT campaign see information and links at: LINK
For the CITB press release see: LINK
