Bowled over by the recovery?

Economic Indicators: From the top of the Pavilion at the Oval, the panorama is breathtaking, taking the eye from the City over to Kensington & Chelsea and down to South London. As spectators delighted in this view, as well as Atherton's century during England's Texaco trophy hat-trick, those with keen ears were also privy to a rare insight: "Economic activity is up this year. I've just counted 29 cranes. This time last season, there was hardly a dozen."

High Earners: The lawyers are wondering how soon Labour's commitment to local decision-making will be put to the test. With the policy of putting 75 per cent of new housing on brownfield sites reckoned not to be achievable, the green belt will once again come under pressure. Lawyers are gleefully anticipating that the not-in-my-backyarders will quickly leap to its defence. With top planning lawyers charging up to œ300 per hour, they can't wait to get started.

Low Earners: While the unions are demanding craft rates of around œ200 a week, in the real world the shortage of skilled staff means bricklayers are already well exceeding œ400 a week and steel fixers and riggers up to œ600. Will we really be seeing "all out" strike action? I don't think so. If we have learned anything from the free market economy, it is that bringing an industry to its knees is no way to negotiate a pay rise. The construction industry, in all its component parts, is beginning to think once again that it exists for its own importance. It doesn't, it's a service to the economy. Lets get it right.

Partnering: Partnering certainly gets my vote. We recently took part in "awaydays", suggested by Mike Bignell and Barry Stobbs, and designed to untangle the final knots on one of the schemes we are managing for NatWest. They were so successful that we took it a stage further last month, demonstrating partnership in action by winning the APM Group Challenge at Eskdale Outward Bound. We were, I believe, the only entrants to include clients in our team. Thus we benefited from the superlative tube map-reading skills of London Underground, and romped home to first and sixth places. As we proved, bonding builds a winning team - especially when you share four to a room!