Two stories leap out from this weeks’ newsletter that we need to stress you read. The rest of the newsletter – packed this week with all sorts of different information – is well worth reading too, but the keyword is infrastructure.

In Building magazine last week, Jeremy Williams, head of construction, energy and projects at Capital Law, wrote an excellent article analysing the Welsh political and economic landscape. One thing he concludes is reassuring – that construction has a key role to play in creating the infrastructure that Wales needs. That might sound obvious – especially if you’re a CEW stakeholder and champion of best practice. But what it also highlights is that Wales needs to look at ‘how’ we build our infrastructure as well as the ‘what’.

We need to work towards a circular economy. Something CEW is going to be emphasising a lot more in the next twelve months – beginning with an event we are planning with the Future Generations Team in November (more details soon). Construction has to make sure it is embedded right at the heart of the circular economy – our future relies on it.

The second story relates to how much time and money is wasted because of delays to the projects designed to give us the infrastructure we need so badly. Delayed and cancelled infrastructure projects are costing the UK almost £70 million per day, and cut UK GDP by £6 billion in the past year, according to new research from design and consultancy firm Arcadis. This points to the very big elephant sat in the room of our Welsh construction industry: funding.

We need it now. We need to know where it is coming from. And we need to know. Now.