What a dramatic change to our world since our last newsletter three months ago. We hope you are all staying safe and are maintaining social distancing to minimise and slow the spread of COVID-19 and in particular protecting those in our community that are most vulnerable to this terrible virus.
The building and construction industry has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and with the ever changing announcements from the State and Federal Government it is not uncertain to what extent and for how long the impact will be.
However, over the last few weeks the NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes has made a couple of recent announcements which support and underpin the importance of the property development industry as an essential service to NSW’s economy which employs 1 in 4 people in the state. The Minister’s announcements includes the ‘Planning System Acceleration Program’ which helps to ensure that approvals are not delayed by local government (particularly those councils whose operations are impacted), and will be “shovel ready” once the COVID-19 related restrictions are lifted in the coming months. It will also help to ensure that current projects already under construction can now operate 24/7, including on weekends and public holidays.
This is a unique opportunity for developers, builders and contractors to take advantage of these changes to legislation to get their Development Applications and Construction Works Certificates approved, and be able to work on projects essentially non-stop to have them ready for the market once the restrictions are lifted and life and the economy returns to normal.
PCB and BRS have made some changes to our operations to ensure that we are fully functional through this current period of uncertainty. For the last two weeks we have enabled our entire team to work from home and we continue to operate with 100% efficiency. Also, our RMS project verification, subdivision certification and construction management engineering inspections continue unabated while adhering to all the COVID-19 social distancing measures.
If you have any queries about the Minister’s latest announcements or are in need of some assistance in getting your projects “shovel ready” please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.
Stay safe and healthy!
Cheers,
Glenn Barker, Managing Director
On behalf of the PCB and BRS team
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