UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

摘要

The furore over the university tuition fees hike was probably the biggest single cause of the Liberal Democrats' near-death experience at the recent general election. The construction industry, though, has cause to feel more warmly about the controversial higher education funding mechanism. Since the fees were raised to £9,000 in 2012, the pipeline of construction work has increased significantly in the university sector. According to figures supplied by Building's sister organisation Barbour ABI, contracts awarded by higher education institutions rose from £2.1bn in 2012-13 to £2.5bn in 2014-15. David Cotton, business development manager at Bam Construct UK, says there is "no question that the future market within the construction sector is one of stability and growth". Richard James, universities sector manager at Willmott Dixon, agrees: "The scale of ambition of the sector is phenomenal. We are regularly seeing framework competitive bids for £200m plus, and that's across the board."