It is 25°C and the sun is shining outside in Cannes, but Chris Williamson is providing a particularly English strain of gloom. The Weston Williamson + Partners (WW+P) co-founder is attending MIPIM for the launch of the Egis Group’s Architecture Line, which has brought the firm into closer collaboration with its architectural stablemates under the global engineering consultancy that bought the infrastructure specialist just over a year ago.

It is a big change for the architect after decades of independence and initially he seems excited about the international opportunities that this new chapter of his professional life offers.

It is when the conversation turns back to Williamson’s native Britain that a note of frustration appears in his gentle East Midlands brogue. Building is meeting the architect in the south of France in March and the long-rumoured cuts to HS2 have recently been made public and are fresh in everyone’s memory. Williamson is keen to vent his frustration.