Pro Installer July 2016 - Issue 40 | Page 16

16 JULY 2016 PRO INSTALLER PRO NEWS www.proinstaller.co.uk BREXIT – CATASTROPHE OR BUSINESS AS USUAL? The dust is settling over the historic Brexit vote in the EU referendum – but the full impact may take years to untangle. More than 30 million people voted ‘Leave’ in the shock result on June 23 by 52% to 48%. Following the result, the pound dropped to its lowest level in 30 years against the US dollar. Since then, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have a ll resigned and a protest march against the Brexit vote attracted a huge turnout in central London. As if that wasn’t enough, the Labour party then lurched into crisis as a raft of frontbenchers resigned, backing a no confidence vote in leader Jeremy Corbyn. It’s not surprising that we feel jumpy. Most accept that such a climate can’t be good for business, and there have been numerous and conflicting predictions about the impact of Brexit on construction and house-building. Here, we share some of the news and views. CONSTRUCTION MORE VOLATILE Monika Slowikowska, founder of Golden Houses Developments – a specialist in high-end residential projects - believed Britain leaving the EU would have a catastrophic effect on the construction industry. Monika Slowikowska, founder of Golden Houses Developments She was worried about the effect on EU funded projects, and said pots of money like the European Structural Investment Fund (EUSIF) had contributed billions towards UK regeneration projects. “We now also risk becoming an unattractive proposition for foreign investors from the other 27 EU countries. This is because increased travel costs and import and export tariffs could complicate the existing simple arrangements. “The same applies to buying building materials from our European partners. Currently, 59% of the building materials we import come from EU countries, who also buy 62% of our exports in the same category. Those transactions were simple to process. Out of the EU, we could pay higher prices and have to contend with more red tape. The inevitable result of this will be higher house prices across the UK.” She added that the cost of labour in the construction sector had increased by an average of 8% in the last six months and was set to keep rising. And, if immigration reduces as predicted, that could starve the construction industry of much needed skills from overseas. The shortage could restrict the government’s ability to meet its housebuilding targets. Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said: “The UK construction industry has been heavily reliant on migrant workers from Europe for decades now – at present, 12% of the British construction workers are of non-UK origin. “The majority of these are from EU countries such as Poland, Romania and Lithuania and they have helped the construction industry bounce back from the economic downturn when 400,000 skilled workers left our industry, most of which did not return. “It is now the government’s responsibility to ensure that the free-flowing tap of migrant workers from Europe is not turned off. “If ministers want to meet their house building and infrastructure objectives, they have to ensure that the new system of immigration is responsive to the needs of industry.” Alan Brookes, UK Chief Executive Officer of design consultancy Arcadis, said: “Construction markets are likely to become more volatile in the short term, and we need to consider a joined-up approach to sus-