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P EOPLE
Martin has helped grow Replay Maintenance into a group of successful businesses
You were appointed SAPCA vice chair in 2019 - what does that role entail?
Ever since Jason (Douglass) was appointed SAPCA chair, he has focused on the skill sets available around the “table”. What he wants is for the SAPCA board to have people with a wide range of abilities and knowledge.
Jason recognised that the success we’ve had at Replay Maintenance is largely down to us being able to secure repeat business. That in mind, he asked me to concentrate on the SAPCA membership and to support him in creating mechanisms that ensure our membership wants to stay with us – while also growing the membership.
So as vice chair, I have a split role – to support the chair, Jason, but also lead on efforts to make sure the membership is happy with the job that SAPCA does.
How do you see SAPCA developing
over the few years?
The SAPCA board is a close knit team and
we are driving forward areas of work that
add further value to members. At the heart
of that is to further strengthen SAPCA’s status as the respected technical competence standard and mark of trustworthiness and quality. We want to ensure our members
are valued more highly than non-members by consultants, architects, local authorities
and all sports governing bodies. For me, the key to achieving that is collaboration.
To establish SAPCA as a badge representing quality and trust within the sports and play construction industry, we need to make sure that the entire SAPCA community works together.
What do you see as the biggest challenges faced by companies and organisations which design, build and maintain sports facilities in the UK? The spiralling costs and lead times affecting everything we do. Everyone in our industry seems to be facing similar challenges. There is a high customer demand, which is great, but there is less materials available which creates pressure.
Costs are moving dynamically on a daily basis. Traditionally, we would hold prices on our quotes for 30 days – but that is becoming increasingly difficult. You only have to look at the cost of fuel to see how that is becoming harder.
So while customer demand is high, it’s
very difficult to establish and maintain price points. A construction company or contractor pricing a large build could take a year before they are rewarded that contract – so you can imagine just how extremely difficult it can
be to try and stay on top of cost profiles. ●
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