Welcome to the last issue of Plant & Civil Engineer for 2022, bringing you all the very latest news from the industry, including a comprehensive report on all the winners at our recent Construction, Quarrying & Recycling Awards, and what a night it turned out to be! Thank you all for your terrific support – and if you weren’t among the winners this time, there’s always 2023.
As we look forward to the New Year ahead, there are still some challenges to meet. While business seems to be steady at the moment, there are concerns for 2023. As you will read in Gordon Best’s regular pages, the ongoing difficulties recruiting suitable staff look likely to continue into 2023, with firms still held back by skills shortages – and the continued lack of an Assembly and NI Executive is frustrating many simply wanting to get on with business.
On another subject, we all know that when it comes to industries that encounter hazards day to day, construction comes out on top. Research from HSE found that a quarter of the fatal injuries to workers in the UK occurred in the construction industry across 2021/22. This shows that there’s still work the UK must do to improve safety for construction workers, which brings us to Ireland’s Health and Safety Authority’s Annual Review of Workplace Injuries, Illnesses and Fatalities. While a 30% reduction in workrelated fatalities in 2021 is to be welcomed, the fact remains that 38 people lost their lives last year in work-related incidents. This is compared to 54 in 2020 and represents the lowest figure recorded since the Authority was established over 30 years ago.
In other news, we look back at the recent Bauma exhibition in Germany. A total of around 3,200 exhibitors from 60 countries and more than 495,000 visitors from over 200 countries came to Munich, exceeding all expectations, and we have a number of reports on the latest product launches, as well as all our regular features.
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