A Winter’s Tale

That time offer’d sorrow;
This, general joy.

Talk to builders and they all say they are really busy. But the question that comes to mind is this: are they busy-busy because there’s so much work on? Or are they busy because they are doing “more with less” to quote Teresa May’s comments to the Police Federation when she was Home Secretary?

If builders are like the rest of us, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t be, then it’s the latter. The Construction Industry Training Board reports that, even though there were 4,572 apprenticeship starts across England, Scotland and Wales between April and December last year – a 30% increase on the year before – there is still a need for at least 47,000 extra workers a year by 2029 f we are to get anywhere near the government’s housebuilding target. Which we won’t. Let’s face it, we were never going to get there, and, I don’t believe anyone in Government, in their heart of hearts, ever thought we would.

Looking around at the market commentary doesn’t fill one with hope, either. Forecasts are cautious, confidence is fragile, and recent commentary – including the rather sober assessment from the Construction Leadership Council’s Materials Supply Group – isn’t exactly screaming Building Boom.

And yet. If things do start to move, at the pace of a snail undoubtedly, when might we be most likely to see things pick-up, to really feel that we have turned a corner? This Spring? Probably not. This Summer? Maybe. Autumn 2026? It’s is much more likely to gather momentum slowly, almost shyly, before showing up on site in the second half of the year.

That said, we still have the wild card that could upset everything: labour. Our ageing workforce, persistent skills shortages and fewer, yet busier builders mean that even modest growth feels intense. A 2–4% rise in output could translate into real pressure on programmes, day rates and availability. Busy, in this context, is as much about capacity as demand. But hasn’t that always been the case in this sector?

I can’t write anything this week without, of course, mentioning what I’ve been glued to on BBC iPlayer (and shhhhh, the tiny pop-out screen on my laptop at work).  The Winter Olympics.

I’m not a skier. The thought of strapping two planks of wood to my feet and hurtling down a snow-covered mountain fills me with dread. But I am in awe of the athletes who do this. Not just the speed skiers, but the freestyle slope skiers who slide across rails and perform aerial tricks to impress the judges with their difficulty and originality. It’s real heart-in-mouth time. The snowboarding commentary – what in heaven’s name is an ‘Air-to-Fakie’, ‘Chunder’, ‘Goofy’ and ‘Toeside Turn’? And the curling – who knew that every four years one could get gripped by teams throwing a piece of stone across a rink and then using a household implement to make sure it knocks the opposition’s stone out of the way?

I no longer ice-skate (long story, some of you know it), so to watch Team GB’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson aim to win Britain’s first figure skating medal since Torvill & Dean, and the incomparable Ilia Malinin, the US figure-skater, has been fabulous.

Alas, for every leap of joy as Malinin completes his fully rotated quadruple Axel, there is heartbreak for another athlete. Team GB’s curling duo Jen Brooks and Bruce Mouat just missed out on the podium, again, and just this morning, Chinese snowboarder Liu Jiayu was stretchered off the slopes. Plus, of course, what could have been the fairytale of the Games with Lindsey Vonn coming back from a ruptured ACL, ended with her being airlifted off with a fractured left leg.

People doing something they love, to the best of their ability, putting their heart and soul into it. What’s not to love?