www.nce.co.uk1 12.02.09 NEWCIVil ENGINEER3
CONTENTS 12.02.09
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05
NEWS
High Speed rail
Network Rail questions the need for a Heathrow Hub on a new high speed line.
18
TUNNELS
Channel TUnnel fire
As Eurotunnel prepares to reopen, NCE reports frOIDthe scelle oflast September's tire.
22
STRUCTURES Birmingham Cube
Semi-transparent cladding and futuristic car park will ensure Birmingham's Cube stands out.
Alsoin thisissue
06 News
Middle East construction downturn to be brief
07 News
Halcrow steps up laptop security
08 News
Civils market grows
14 Analvsis
Cali Boris Island beat off Heathrow's expansion?
Letters
Structures, energy, legal, flooding, tunnels 25 ICENews
ICE energy parer raIls for poliey to be review
16
Comment
Antony Oliver 1
PPAEditorof theYear"Now there isthe opportunity to take stockand do things differently. Hopefully better"
TheMiddleEast:Looking to a moresustainable future
What a difference a year makes. It was an overused phrase at this week's Arabian World Construction Summit in Abu Dhabi, but no less accurate.
This rime last year the summit was about coping with an overheated Middle East construction market with rampant materials priee inflation, skills shortages and capacity problems. It's aIl very different radar.
A year on, the conversations were aIl about cancelled projects, lare payments, business downsizing and potential new markets.
And ominously, in a world where relation- ships and trust has been king for so long, there was even talk of firms taking clients to court to recover unpaid bills - the "nuclear"
option as it was described.
But after so much success, cali the market really be that bad? The answer is yes and no.
Yes in that the construction firms exposed to the property collapse in Dubai now have to core with managing their cash flow in the
face of clients who are technically operating insolvent and owe vast SUffiS.
Yes in that matir firms find themselves being asked to re-priee work already won or risk going to retender, while others are simply seeing projects delayed or cancelled.
Yes in that staff are being made redun- datif in a world where redundancy cali mean having to leave a country that has been four home for decades.
Yet on the other hand there is still a real sense of optimism. A feeling, perhaps barn froIDthe realisation that this market correc- tion was always inevitable, that provided foU are in the right markets, with the right skills and relationships, there is still a demand to be supplied and so a profit to be made.
So while it is clear that it cali never be business as usual for anyone in the Gulf, now there is the opportunity to take stock and do things differently. Hopefully better.
The "everything is possible" culture has
not galle away. There still is the ambition to lead the world with quality projects. And the future will be about relationships and trust.
The difference now should be a greater emphasis on longer term planning and public investment in infrastructure such as energy supply, transport, healthcare, afford- able housing and education.
More emphasis on quality design, work and profits. Less emphasis on turnover chasing and short term greed. It is refreshing to hear raIls for governments here to step up to the plate to meet their social responsibili- ries and to hear priva te developers talking about branching out into affordable housing.
As one speaker put it: "We have created a world class construction industry and we are not going to abandon it at the first crisis." It may be suffering now, and it may be hugely dependant on ail priee recovery, but don't write off the Middle East just fer.
