18 | DECEMBER 2017
News
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
BUDGET FOR
BUILDERS
MATCH MADE
IN HEAVEN
VEKA Group is proud
to announce an exciting
new partnership with UK
Flood Barriers, becoming
the exclusive supplier of
PVCu profile for its Flood
Angel brand of flood de-
fence windows and doors.
The collaboration pairs
two of the UK’s industry
leaders in their respective
fields, with Flood Angel one
of the country’s top manu-
facturers of BSI Kitemark
flood mitigation, and VEKA
Group a leading supplier
of PVCu window and door
systems.
Besides Flood Angel’s
domestic flood solutions,
parent company UK Flood
Barriers delivers commercial
contracts and flood preven-
tion measures for riverside
and coastal areas. One such
contract involved building
and installing retractable
flood barriers for a universi-
ty hospital in New York. The
installation was put to the
test when the River Hudson
broke its banks, and the
barrier withstood its forces
perfectly.
The Chancellor Philip Hammond delivered
a ‘budget for builders’ that should allow
small builders to deliver more of the new
homes Britain so badly needs, according to
the Federation of Master Builders (FMB).
Commenting on the Budget
www.floodangel.com
www.vekauk.com
Support to boost skills
One of the biggest con-
cerns in the industry cur-
rently is the impending skills
gap. It’s a concern Epwin
Window Systems is acutely
aware of, but Sharn Samra,
the company’s marketing di-
rector, says it is taking steps
to tackle the issue. “We know
that fabricators and installers
are concerned about find-
ing skilled workers and it’s
something that Excellence as
Standard, our ground-break-
ing new membership
programme, addresses. The
programme aims to drive
quality at every stage of the
business and a core part of
that is in having a skilled
workforce.”
A cornerstone of EAS is the
Excellence Academy, which
offers two routes to creating
a skilled workforce. The first
is a heavily discounted NVQ
training and the second is
apprenticeships.
The Excellence Academy
is just one element of the
Excellence as Standard pro-
gramme because members
also benefit from the quality
products available from Pro-
file 22, Spectus and Swish.
www.epwin.co.uk
2017 announced in November,
Brian Berry, chief executive of the
FMB said: “The government has
set itself a new target of building
300,000 new homes a year by the
mid-2020s. And the Chancellor
has put small and medium-sized
builders at the heart of ambitious
plans to tackle the growing hous-
ing crisis. The Chancellor appears
to be putting his money where his
mouth is w