Construction bodies have called on the government to speed up plans to tackle the shortage of skilled building workers.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the House Builders Federation have accused the government of dragging its feet over proposals to set up a national centre for construction training by January 2005.

The ODPM has accepted the idea but a funding decision is not due until next month.

The national centre was mooted in Sir John Egan鈥檚 report on the skills needed to deliver sustainable communities, published in April.

Egan鈥檚 research also concluded that there was a dearth of workers skilled enough to 鈥渙versee the construction of large, sustainable communities鈥�.

Neil Johnson, senior parliamentary and policy officer for the RICS, said: 鈥淲e need to be putting meat on the bones, but the government is still not focused on the practical details for implementing action on the ground.

鈥淲e鈥檙e worried we are going to end up with homogeneous housing estates, not sustainable communities.鈥�

HBF spokesman Piers Williams added: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all very well talking about setting up a centre, but we need to know how it will operate and deliver.鈥�

The government issued its response to the Egan skills report last week. Deputy prime minister John Prescott said Whitehall was committed to increasing training opportunities for a range of jobs in order to deliver sustainable communities.

鈥淲e are taking plans forward for a national centre,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t will play a vital role in bringing about the necessary changes in attitudes, behaviour and knowledge.鈥�

  • The ODPM announced last Friday that the next design coding pilot project will take place in Swindon, Wiltshire.

Design codes are guidelines for features such as road layout and window height to harmonise the look of developments. They have proved popular with government but not with architects.

Source

Housing Today