THE Scottish Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) is making an appeal to manufacturers to help support the building sector’s recovery.
Working with the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC) and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, the organisation is holding a virtual event amid a global materials shortage.
All the main construction players and manufacturing organisations have an open invitation to the event, called Scottish Manufacturing – the Opportunity for Construction. The webinar will be held on Tuesday, August 31, from 10 to 11.15am, and the keynote speaker will be Scottish Government business minister Ivan McKee.
UK construction activity levels are at a seven-year high, but costs are rising and industry faces an ‘unprecedented’ retrofit challenge to help delivery of a net zero built environment.
Delegates will hear from Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government about opportunities available to manufacturers to fill current supply chain gaps and also create new markets and bolster long-term raw material security by promoting home-grown materials and products.
Peter Reekie, chief executive of the Scottish Futures Trust and chair of the executive group of the CLF, said, “There is no doubt that the construction industry in Scotland is facing a challenging situation with continuing supply chain interruption and we believe that the country’s manufacturing and resource capability must hold an important part of the solution. We want to use this event to map the supply chain landscape and articulate the opportunities for manufacturers in terms of new technologies which they can adopt in their businesses to increase their capacity, attractiveness and competitiveness.
“Great strides have already been made in off-site manufacturing techniques which increase speed and efficiency of construction and successful demonstrator projects are showing terrific potential for the use of home-grown timber.”
One example is a project led by CSIC, with a number of other partners, which has secured funding from Innovate UK’s Sustainable Innovation Fund to prove the business case for using Scottish timber to create the structural elements of buildings. The demonstrator project at CSIC’s innovation factory in Hamilton could lead to the mainstream use of home-grown timber in Scottish and the rest of the UK construction, as well as the development of the country’s first engineered timber manufacturing plant.
Interested parties can register for the virtual event at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1519275897520521997
