Last week we talked about the latest update of the pan-Wales local authority pipeline showing details of a £4bn capital programme across the four years 2015/2016-2018/19. This mid-year update sees a £1bn increase in this 4-year programme published in August last year, with an extra £500m in Housing and £300m in Education.

You can see the details behind these numbers and the reason for the sense of optimism in Welsh construction in some of the stories in this weeks’ newsletter. It is all good news – but despite that, we cannot get carried away with ourselves.

The pipeline looks good; reports on progress are good. New projects are beginning. But our procurement process is still creaky and inconsistent; onsite practices can always be improved upon and we still have touch waste and sustainability targets to achieve. None of our goals and ambitions can be secured without a commitment to best practice, a united integrated team and a focus on longer term value and not short term costs.

When times are good it is tempting to shrug our shoulders and take the positives and not consider how much better we could do things.

That is not the way of the construction best practice movement. The change agenda for Welsh construction is one of continuous improvement. Now, when things are good, is an even better time to focus on changing things to make them great.