From George Osborne to Lord Stunell, some of the quotes from 2017 in construction

鈥淲hen I was growing up, British workers were travelling out to Germany and elsewhere鈥�

George Osborne laments the loss of labour opportunities for UK workers following Brexit

鈥淭he banks laugh at you when you tell them the figure. They wouldn鈥檛 even get out of bed for that sum鈥�

Lipton Rogers鈥� Peter Rogers on construction鈥檚 margins problem

鈥淧robably as good or better a hire as Carillion could have hoped for鈥�

Cenkos analyst Kevin Cammack on the beleaguered contractor鈥檚 coup in luring Andrew Davies from Wates to become its new chief executive

鈥淭he first rule of contracting is: if you don鈥檛 understand the risk or don鈥檛 have the people to construct that asset, don鈥檛 do it鈥�

Former Balfour Beatty executive Nick Pollard, now the boss of a recycling firm, wonders why Interserve ever got into the energy-from-waste market

鈥淭his brings us to the bad news. There will be nobody to build them鈥�

Lord Stunell warns that the government鈥檚 promised post-Brexit building boom on housing and infrastructure schemes might run into a few snags

鈥淚t is highly likely that some of the broader analysis that will go on post-Grenfell around building regulation will look at systemic failings in our industry鈥�

Mark Farmer 鈥� author of last year鈥檚 industry review 

鈥淐ITB has a fundamental governance weakness: it is not closely and regularly accountable to the industry it exists to serve鈥� 

Balfour Beatty chief executive Leo Quinn isn鈥檛 impressed with the training group. He changes his mind a few weeks later

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