At this time of year, most of us understand that noise from elsewhere is part and parcel of the experience when we’re in our outdoor spaces. It might be road or railway line noise, or it might even be your neighbour’s musical barbecues. And of course, if you’re the ones outside making noise, it will probably be having the same effect on them. Acoustic fencing can provide the solution.

• More time spent outside means more exposure to noise.
• Road, rail, or neighbours are likely to be the cause.
• Acoustic fencing can help.

Outside spaces are great places to spend time, especially when the weather is fine, but if you live near to a busy road, a railway line, or are within close earshot of your neighbours, you might wonder if there is any way to dampen down the noise, or at least distract from it.

Acoustic timber fences are a cost-effective potential solution. Built out of dense timber and configured in a tight formation with few gaps, double-boarded, multi-sided acoustic timber fences can really help to minimise the noise by providing a solid barrier that reflects sound in all directions.

This means that as well as keeping other noises out, you’re also keeping your own noise in – enhancing your own privacy and having less of an effect on your neighbours when they’re outside too.

So long as the fence is high enough and has no gaps between panels and palings, it can be an effective noise reducer and provide a smart private screen with a modern aesthetic, as well as helping to deter unwanted visitors.

Ideal for domestic settings, acoustic fencing also works well in more commercial settings such as civils, road schemes, and housing developments.

The construction industry is suffering from an ongoing shortage of workers at the same time as technological advances are set to change the industry through a huge increase in automation and robotic technologies. This means that construction is set to enter a period of flux and the role of the worker is likely to change.

• The construction industry has a labour shortage.
• As it enters a period of transformative technological shift, workers’ traditional roles must adapt to survive.

A current issue for UK construction companies is the impact of workforce shortages in terms of skilled workers.

Nevertheless, the industry is entering a period of transformation. As the technological shift to more automation begins to take shape, construction companies will move to evolve how they work through the use of robotics and heavy technology on job sites and throughout the construction industry.

One of the consequences of increased automation is a potential skills discrepancy between robots that can do the physical labour previously carried out by workers such as laying the bricks or excavations or fencing the site area.

If a robot can do it, then why bother with the workers?

Well, the workers will still need to direct the automation and to do this, their technological skills will need to increase. So, a worker who up until this point has had a labour-focused job will need support to manage the transition to automation from the private and public sector, and from within the industry itself.

The current model of baseline vocational qualifications delivered by colleges the public sector will need to adapt to accommodate the pending technological shift through the curriculum for new entrants. Workers who have been in the industry for years already will need to be upskilled or reskilled altogether.

Besides public-sector input, the private sector also has a role to play in preparing apprenticed and established workers for the technological shifts and changing skills that are required. As times passes, sufficiently qualified and skilled workers will be at a premium in an industry with workforce shortages. A company’s failure to engage with these changes, to develop their workers’ skills, and to prepare them for the future would be a short-sighted approach.

However, if there is disruption ahead for construction, there is opportunity. Supporting workers to develop the skills required to succeed will create stronger supply of labour in the industry and increase productivity.

The accelerating pace of technological innovation should mean a continually evolving mix of soft and technical skills that exists with people and machines working in conjunction. Robotics and automation are coming, but at the end of the day, it is still the worker who must place each piece correctly or instruct the machine to do so.

AI technology tools, for example the language processing software ChatGPT, are destined to change how we learn, how we train, and how we work.

Take the construction industry which, like others, inevitably looks for ways to increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness. AI has the potential to transform these areas at a rapidly accelerating pace.

Increasing automation – the use of machines, tech. and computing for manual tasks – promises improved accuracy, faster project delivery, and increased safety onsite. For example, drone footage can report onsite hazards in real time, or remote-control vehicles can carry out work in difficult to access areas.

Similarly, new systems such as Mapscape, (an interactive urban forestry software) can produce tree surveys, create fast and accurate workflows, provide digital maps, aerial imagery, speech to text input, and GPS tree mapping providing the data across multiple devices and accessible across the UK. For an arboriculturist, this can save significant amounts of time, money, and resources by automating previously manual processes. This sort of technology, if applied to planning, costing, and quantifying fencing jobs will change the way we work.

AI systems may integrate different types of data so that teams’ work rates can be monitored, schedules tweaked and redirected due to traffic hold ups or weather conditions. Being able to say, with accuracy, ‘this is the job, this is the location, this is the process, and these are the costs,’ will have a massive effect on planning and productivity.

However, a consequence of increased automation could be that ultimately, it reduces the need for manual labour and the physical input of real people. Unlike humans, automation doesn’t need downtime, it yields precise, consistent results and it can repeat manual tasks accurately and uniformly.

Technological progress, with all its opportunities and drawbacks, is inevitable and industry will need to adapt to technological changes brought by AI and automation.

So where does that leave people?

We think that as firms face this shift in skills together, finding qualified practitioners will become increasingly problematic. The initial impact of AI won’t be on the manual skills crucial to a business like ours. It may affect planning and logistics moving forward, but it still takes around 12 months to train a fully competent qualified fencer to our standards and AI can’t do that.

And we believe that people like to deal with other people. Tech might take over in the end, but we think there’s a long way to go before we’d swap dealing with real people for anything else, and we think our clients feel the same.

There was a great turn out for this year’s Agri Trade Fair which was held earlier this month. The Agri Trade Fair, now in its second year, was put together in 2021 to showcase agricultural & rural businesses in Cheshire. Despite the weather not being in our favour, the fair was still a great success. It was a great day to bring the farming community together and to allow opportunities to see familiar faces and catch up with those living and working in the agricultural industry. Stockdale Fencing were really proud to be part of this event and to be able to showcase our fencing. It was great to see such hive of activity across the whole show. We have more shows lined up for later in the summer, including the all-important The Royal Cheshire County Show on 21^st and 22^nd June 2022. Get it in your diary!

This winter and spring has seen a rise in footpath fencing. Installations have included National Trust work, private estates and land owners with public footpath access. Since the initial lockdown of 2020 the popularity in enjoying our local countryside has sharply increased. There has been a vast interest in the public using and enjoying local footpaths, this in turn has lead to a need to improve them from a safety and practical perspective. Much of the work our teams have carried out is deer fencing, livestock fencing and netting. These are really great options for keeping livestock and deer safe within their surroundings. It also helps prevent the public accessing the animals, including dogs gaining access to the animals. It’s always vital to remember to try and keep your dog on a lead, certainly where livestock are present. Cheshire East have reported a number of incidents lately whereby dogs have been allowed off leads which in turn has affected livestock and their young. It is paramount we remain safe on our footpaths but that also includes taking responsibility of the livestock in the surrounding areas. Livestock and other fencing is in place to help encourage this, and here at Stockdale Fencing we are always really keen to contribute in keeping our countryside safe for all users.