Northwest business leaders have responded positively to Andy Burnham’s political pathfinder speech in Manchester yesterday.
Reacting to plans for the largest programme for council house building since the war, Sutcliffe CEO Sean Keyes said:
“I welcome the ambition Andy Burnham has shown.
“Whilst others in Westminster will spend time weighing the politics of this speech, our interest is principally in the two fundamentals he referenced: housing and skills.
“With more than 35 years’ experience of building across the region, I’d say he has identified the right priorities – a decent home and a strong education are the foundations for a successful society”.
But Keyes also counselled there would be challenges ahead.
“We’re involved in the design of around 5,000 homes each year. Ambition on the scale the Prime Minister-in- waiting has laid out will run straight into some hard realities. You will not succeed in building at that pace without the necessary numbers of engineers, surveyors, planners and skilled trades to design and deliver it. The Royal Academy of Engineering estimates that almost one in five engineers will retire by 2028. That is why Andy’s commitment to technical education is every bit as important as his commitment to housing.
“At Sutcliffe we share that ambition with our commitment to train 40 new engineers and surveyors in the next decade because we know apprenticeships are essential if we are to tackle the UK’s engineering skills shortage. Young people should be able to build rewarding professional careers without necessarily taking on tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, and if a ‘Number Ten North‘ can put real weight behind apprenticeships and technical education, it will find firms like ours ready to support it”.
And business leaders said the likely future PM’s words will be measured in hard outcomes. Keyes added:
“Overall, we welcome the direction of travel. The real test, however, is delivery. Devolved powers for house building will only succeed if they come with the required funding, planning reform and skilled workforce needed to make them work. Success won’t be measured by announcements or changes to how government is organised, It will be counted by the number of homes built, the number of apprentices trained and the number of businesses who have the skilled people they need to grow.”
