Construction boss hits out at utility delay BUILDING: COSTS

CONTINUING failure by utility companies to speed up new connections to their networks is costing Scottish builders "tens of millions of pounds", the leader of the Scottish construction industry has said.

Michael Levack, chief executive of the Scottish Building Federation (SBF), said his members were "very frustrated" with the time taken by gas, electricity, water and telecoms firms to give quotations, visit sites and supply meters. The SBF has established a working group, due to report later this year, to apply pressure to resolve the problem.

Levack accused finance secretary John Swinney and enterprise minister Jim Mather of "not understanding the problem". He demanded new rules to improve a "frustrating and shoddy" system, which he ranked alongside planning delays as a major barrier to his sector's growth.

Levack said: "[The utilities] are all pretty bad. There is room for significant improvement in how they deal with building contractors and developers." His attack coincided with a separate broadside by Roger Willey of Core Utility Solutions, the independent connection provider (ICP) owned by Scottish Power, who said that slow service by the utilities was damaging profitability.

Beyond the tens of millions of pounds Levack said were lost due to delayed developments, the SBF maintains that site managers were wasting time negotiating with utility providers.

Privatisation of gas and electricity providers had, Levack said, made the situation worse, since it removed clarity over who was responsible for providing gas and electricity to a site.

He claimed cost-cutting meant utilities no longer had enough personnel to liaise with developers.

"Now you are dealing with a call centre. If you are lucky it will be in East Kilbride. If you are unlucky it will be in Milton Keynes or even Asia. The process is fraught with frustration and very shoddy customer service." He added that the SBF had held meetings with the utility companies to try to find ways around the problem.

A Scottish government spokesman said that he did not want to pre- empt the SBF's report but added: "If a serious organisation like the SBF makes recommendations, then ministers will consider them." Meanwhile, Scottish Water was singled out for criticism by another building industry executive, who described its performance as "shocking".

Alan Thomson, head of community affairs at Scottish Water, rejected the suggestion Scottish Water was holding up development projects. He said that part of the problem was that Scottish Water receives a high volume of technical applications that don't meet the regulatory standards for first-time approval.

He said: "We are working with local authorities and developers across the country to enable development and our research suggests substantial progress is being made. This was acknowledged at a recent meeting we had with Scotland's top house developers.

"Our customer service satisfaction results for the year to this month show that 76-per cent are happy or satisfied with the development, planning and delivery process, a significant improvement on the previous year." The Energy Networks Association, which represents the gas and electricity companies, did not return calls.

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