THE increasing emphasis on price and fast delivery in the built environment is threatening quality and safety says, Bill Copeland, director of consulting group Binnington Copeland and Associates.

Copeland says there has been a visible lowering of standards in the construction industry over the years, which can be linked to fast tracking of construction and budgets that are too low for the job in hand.

"In our instant society, longevity does not seem to be important any longer," says Copeland.

"It would still be great to create buildings and structures that would stand the ravages of time and would one day be monuments to our current aesthetic and technological capabilities," he says.

"Instead, we all know of structures that have already collapsed during construction or fairly shortly after construction," he says.

How many of our modern structures, despite the huge leaps in technological know-how, would still be standing in the next century, asked Copeland.

Peter Hunter, MD of Boksburg-based developer and contractor Clearspan Project, sees the solution in negotiated contracts as opposed to tender process.

He says that there are major advantages in negotiating a project with a reputable contractor in preference to putting it out to tender.

These include substantial cost savings.

"Tendering is an expensive process, and the costs must ultimately be passed on to the client," says Hunter.

In order to secure the job, the contractor will tender only for what is required, rather than suggesting alternatives which often save the client money in the long run, says Hunter.

He says the tendering process leads to "cost cutting at all costs".

The end result of which was often shoddy buildings that depreciated in value within a short period, he says.