Major construction and development projects bring untold benefits – a reduction in eyesore buildings, a sense of place, fit-for-purpose facilities.

But aren’t they boring to live with? Building can take ages and while the end result is worth it, cranes, portable toilets and temporary fencing can be dull sights day-in-day-out for the duration of a build.

It’s more serious than an unsightly view on your walk to work though.

Construction projects that take years while spreading dust on the streets can negatively impact how a local population feels about the development, which can in turn have a long-term impact on the success of the scheme.

But it doesn’t have to be all dust and cranes. Lively hoardings and clear public information can go a long way to boosting public confidence about a development and making projects altogether ‘friendlier’ things to live with while the construction phase is under way.

A great example comes from Interserve Paragon, which tapped into the art-rich culture of London’s Shoreditch to improve the image of its Project Manor refurbishment – with incredible results.

The team at Interserve Paragon were carrying out the internal fit-out of East Anglia House in Great Eastern Street and worked with Global Street Art – a company which organises hoarding artwork and street art murals in its mission “to live in painted cities”.

The site was labelled “a real asset to London’s street art scene”.

Creative construction, as I like to refer to it, can reach far beyond hoardings though.

Building wraps are increasingly common place and Paris’s Panthéon refurbishment took the idea to a new level a few years ago with an art installation that saw its famous dome covered in portraits of thousands of people snapped by artist JR.

My fellow developers need to see their builds as a series of temporary blank canvasses.

Arts budgets have been scrapped, and on construction sites the length and breadth of the country we are missing opportunities to give outlets to the arts.

What safe corners of sites can we find for temporary installations: photography, street art, portraits and poetry?

What joy can we bring for these small intrusions on our land? We need our new buildings, our enterprise and our financial robustness to help us live…. but as the internet claims Barack Obama once said, “the arts are what makes life worth living”, and I think Robin Williams hit the nail on the head in Dead Poets Society: “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

"But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”