The HVCA changed its name on 1 March to the Building & Engineering Services Association, or B&ES in short form.
It is merely coincidence that the move comes so soon after the HVCA created discontent across the industry with its botched attempt to introduce new contract conditions for employees in the sector. The name change is not an attempt to hide from that fiasco. In fact, as previously reported, the decision to change the name was made at a special general meeting on 8 December after consultation with members.
Established in 1904 as the National Association of Master Heating and Domestic Engineers, the organisation adopted the HVCA name in 1963.
“Back then, of course, that’s exactly how the majority of members would have described themselves – as h&v contractors – with the result that the name of their representative body accurately reflected the services they provided to the marketplace,” said B&ES president Bob Shelley.
“These days, however, things are very different. The term ‘h&v’ barely scratches the surface of the diverse, sophisticated and highly complex nature of the work which our members now undertake.
“Nor does it even hint at the increasingly central role they play in the integration of engineering services in buildings – and especially in the incorporation of the renewable technologies that are clearly here to stay in our environmentally-conscious age.”
The president added that B&ES members embraced many other specialisms – “ventilation hygiene, heat pumps and facilities services, to name but a few” – all of which sat comfortably under the “building and engineering services” identity.
Looking to the future, Mr Shelley confirmed that “re-branding is just one element in a re-positioning exercise” that would enable the association to provide its members with a wider range of services, to enhance its influence with government, and to offer a natural home to all building engineering services specialists.
“I am convinced that, as B&ES, we are ideally placed to become just such an organisation”, he concluded.
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