1 mins
FROM THE EDITOR
It has been an uncomfortable past couple of months for the demolition industry, at least if you look at it from a British perspective. If, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, once is unfortunate but twice looks like carelessness, a group of contractors whose numbers run into double figures being punished for bid rigging after a lengthy Competition and Markets Authority investigation leaves me struggling for a suitable adjective.
Whatever industry you are part of, you want to feel comfortable that the contract awards and job tenders within it are above suspicion.
However much a negative outcome to a bid might not make sense to those on the wrong side of it, however much a losing company might disagree with the final result at the time, it is essential that when those feelings clear, everyone goes back to a default position that the customer made its choice fairly based on the information available to them.
Of course our industry is a collection of human beings, and ultimately the human race has been showing weakness in the face of potential financial gain for thousands of years.
But bearing in mind the fact that much of this collusion took place during a period of time when demolition has made huge strides to reinvent itself from an image of a dirty, dangerous afterthought of the construction sector, and the United Kingdom was a large part of that, the news of the verdicts and the multi-million pound fines that went with them feels like several steps backwards.
In the aftermath, much praise is due to the UK National Federation of Demolition Contractors.
Its statement - that it does not condone any acts of collusion and that it reiterates its commitment to professionalism and integrity - was a model of simplicity that at the same time said it all.
Because at times like this, we need to remember the thousands of demolition firms who spent those years doing things by the book, and look to them for an example as the industry goes again.
STEVE DUCKER