Last October builder George Collier, of Kinmel Bay, Conwy, was jailed for two years after he was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence following the death of three-year-old Meg Burgess.
Mold Crown Court was told how Collier, 49, had been building a wall that was 22m (72ft) long and nearly 1.6m (5ft 3in) high that had been backfilled with 26 tonnes of rubble and block.
The wall was improperly anchored and no measures had been taken to protect pedestrians walking along the adjacent pavement, the court heard. It fell in one piece, killing Meg as she walked alongside it.
Meg’s parents, Lindsay and Pete Burgess, have since campaigned for improvements in the domestic construction industry to prevent more lives being put at risk. They launched Meg’s Campaign on Facebook, which is calling for the domestic building industry to be regulated.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recently responded to pressure group Meg’s Campaign by commissioning external consultants to report on how similar licensing schemes work in other countries.
Although the report has not yet been completed, it is thought unlikely that BIS would support the creation of a new licensing scheme or body. However, industry sources say that the government does want to see far better consumer protection measures put in place – both for their own sake and to boost demand for small-scale private projects.
The government believes that slack private sector demand is linked to the general public’s poor perception of the industry and should be tackled with a new campaign to squeeze out ‘cowboy’ builders, according to sources.
And measures to raise domestic clients’ confidence in the industry will also be one of the recommendations from the ‘image of the industry’ working group feeding into the forthcoming Industrial Strategy for Construction, due to be published on 2 July.
The BIS, and its Minister for Construction, Michael Fallon, are believed to have drawn a link between low private sector demand and the general perception that commissioning a domestic or small commercial project is a risk-laden lottery.
The Federation of Master Builders and TrustMark, the umbrella organisation for 30 scheme operators across the industry, have both declared themselves ready to offer beefed-up schemes that would set higher standards for member companies.
Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB, said: “The government acknowledges there’s a problem with the image [of the domestic sector] which is having a negative impact on the image of construction as a whole. So we ought to be making better use of what already exists, so organisations like the FMB should be part of the solution.”
Berry added that he had discussed the issue with BIS officials and Hansford. “There appears to be a coalescing of interests to tackle the issue of image and raising standards. It hasn’t happened for a long time, but there’s now a willingness for the industry to tackle it.”
Let’s hope this can be done before any more lives are tragically lost.
Heather Campbell
Editor
