Whatever way you look at it, 2016 has been a tough year, we’ve lost some entertainment icons such as David Bowie, Alan Rickman and the great Paul Daniels.
This coupled with the shock results of the EU referendum vote and Trump’s election has shaken much of the UK and further afield to the core.
From a construction point of view, while the Brexit result was a blow to the industry, its seems to be business as usual and the problems with attracting workers as well as the changing nature of working on site appear to be the biggest issues concerning our readership.
From our top list of stories for the year our readers have shown their class as well as desire for technical knowhow with our write up of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government proving to be the top story for 2016.
Elsewhere the decades long conundrum construction managers had in attempting to marry health and safety with fashion was finally achieved in the new colour coding of hard hats.
Theresa May’s original appointment and her construction track record also proved popular with readers, so far the construction sector has been satisfied with her work, but give it six months!
The collapse of iconic heritage building firm William Anelay was a very sad story and an unfortunate trend of folding firms over the year, but let’s hope this reverses in 2017.
With that, below are our top stories for the year and we look forward to informing and entertaining you in 2017.
1. Envelope: Political correctness at Oxford University
2. What colour hard hat should you wear? New coding system arrives
3. What you’ll be talking about in 2016
4. Unacceptable standards found in four Edinburgh PFI schools built by Miller Construction
5. Theresa May and the construction industry – what we know so far
6. Sad day as 269-year-old William Anelay calls in administrators
7. BBC to tackle housing crisis with ‘Million Homes Challenge’ offsite showcase
8. CPD: Operation Magnify: Stamping out illegal working on every site
9. What’s happening to our quality control?
10. Skanska plans robots for next phase of Battersea development