UK has cheapest costs in Europe

The UK is not a more expensive place to build, said a leading cost consultant this week.

Martin Bishop, managing partner at Franklin & Andrews, poured cold water on the widely held view that building costs in the US are 30% less than here because of poor cost control by inefficient UK contractors.

"The UK is the cheapest place to build in Western Europe while retaining high standards," said Bishop.

The Black Book, produced by international construction consultants Franklin & Andrews, reveals that the UK is as good a prospect for construction investment as the US.

It measured building costs across Europe, Scandinavia and the US, using factors such as location, specification, design efficiency, form of contract and state of the local economy. The higher the factor, the higher the costs.

While Western Europe has a factor average of 117 compared with the US's 102, the UK is the lowest in Western Europe at 100, putting it on a similar footing to the US.

But Bishop warned that Western Europe has much to fear from the competitive construction costs offered by Eastern European countries. The Czech Republic and the Ukraine have a factor average of 77, with Russia, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia not far behind.

Bishop said: "It would be cheaper for a company to build a factory in Eastern Europe than elsewhere though we don't know if the standard of construction is comparable."