The new Chancellor, Philip Hammond, delivered his Autumn Statement last month, announcing several pledges instrumental to the growth and development of housing and infrastructure across the country.

In the statement, Hammond not only pledged to release £2.3b towards a new Housing Infrastructure Fund – which will be used to support the construction of up to 100,000 new homes – but on top of that, he also unveiled that £1.4b will be used to provide a further 40,000 new affordable homes.

The housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges faced by the UK, so these announcements are a major boost for the construction industry, and in light of this year’s earlier Brexit outcome, sceptics must remember it could have been a lot worse.

Despite the plans to build more homes, the industry’s workforce is still under strain and the recent Farmer report only emphasised the urgent pressure to replenish the construction industry’s rapidly depleting workforce. On page 26, Ionic Recruitment’s Martyn Makinson considers the findings of the report and sheds light on how it affects the construction recruitment industry.

Elsewhere in this issue, FC&A reveals the winners of this year’s Wood Awards, Stuart Cameron at Morgan Tucker considers what constitutes good quality housing and Studio Fuksas profiles the largest building in Rome in over 50 years.

I hope you enjoy this edition. Don’t forget, you can also access all of the magazine’s features, product news and supplier information at your fingertips via Future Constructor & Architect’s state-of-the-art app. To download your version free of charge, simply search ‘fc&a’ on Google play or the App Store.