CEWales E Bulletin January 2024
Last week we held our Construction Summit Wales 2024. The theme of the day was ‘the Opportunities, Risk Factors and Solutions’ and was an opportunity for construction sector leaders to discuss the opportunities available in Wales and how best to lever those opportunities to grow the economy, create prosperity and provide the skills and training necessary for the workforce in a rapidly changing environment.
With over 150 people from across the entire value supply chain in attendance as well as key Welsh Government officials. We were delighted that Vaughan Gething MS, Minister for Economy gave the keynote speech and stayed for over 30 minutes answering questions from the floor in a very real, honest and pragmatic way.
We heard about Investment Zones, Welsh Freeports, Sustainable Communities for Learning Programme, Infrastructure delivery, an industry overview, perspectives from SME’s, the decarbonisation of existing homes and G4C Wales (Generation for Change).
This summit marks the start of a new relationship between Welsh Government and Constructing Excellence in Wales where we will now provide Welsh Ministers with specialist construction advice, real time market intelligence and a research capability.
The new relationship will improve the quality of engagement between government and the sector at a time when the economy is experiencing challenging times.
The Summit is timely, it brought together sector leaders engaged across the entire spectrum of activity and partnerships with the public sector. The sector must remain confident and viable going forward if we are to see real economic growth in Wales.
However, this is not something that the Government can achieve singlehandedly, it needs engagement and collaboration with the sector if they are to deliver on the programme, it needs honest debate to address the challenges that lie ahead. Precisely what we did at the Summit. We now need to work together to turn this into action.
CEWales will shortly be launching a series of working groups to help achieve these ambitions. We will be relying on YOU, CEWales’ thought leading members to drive this forward. If you are interested please get in touch info@cewales.org.uk