WHEN Elizabeth Anthony, a retired nurse, hired a Polish builder to plaster the walls of her south London home she was so pleased with his work she asked him to redecorate her ceilings.

What happened next was an increasingly familiar story for British homeowners now finding that Polish builders, once a byword for honesty, hard work and low prices, are beginning to go native.

The original builder had returned to Poland for a holiday, but he asked three of his countrymen, fresh off the coach, to take on the task.

The new arrivals left piles of rubbish around the flat, disappeared for days on end and, even when they did put in an appearance, seemed excessively keen on tea breaks.

“They were contemptuous and insolent,” said Anthony, 56, last week. “They didn’t show up some days, never told me what they were doing, left rubble around the place and even stole my net curtains. The whole thing was deeply unpleasant.”

When Poland and other east European countries such as Lithuania and the Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004, Britain was one of the few existing member states to allow them virtually unrestricted access to the labour market.

Concerns over high levels of immigration were soon drowned out out by dinner-party anecdotes about the influx of cheap, cheerful, hardworking nannies, plumbers and builders.

But the laws of the market now appears to be spawning a second generation of workers adapting their prices and working habits to the UK norm.

More than 76,000 foreigners registered in Britain as self-employed builders last year, the majority from Poland. There are signs that some of the skilled workers of three years ago have been replaced by inexperienced, unqualified compatriots.

Michael Bourne, 53, a property developer, paid a Polish builder to tile the kitchen floor at his home in Limehouse, east London. Workman took the wheels off a £2,000 gas range cooker and wedged it into place.

The oven is now jammed in and Bourne, who cannot move it, said: “I am left to cook my meals in a £40 microwave from Tesco.”

Nita Bowers, 46, a graphics designer for a City investment bank, hired two Polish builders to decorate her £250,000 buy-to-let flat overlooking Canary Wharf only to find they had moved in, damaged a wall and ruined her microwave. She too had to go to court to get them out. “The bizarre thing is that they were seen driving a BMW,” she said. “I won’t be hiring Polish builders again.”

It is an attitude gaining momentum among both employers and unions inside Britain’s £100 billion-a-year construction industry - some of whom do, of course, have a vested interest. The Specialist Engineering and Contractors’ (SEC) group, which represents 8,000 companies, has written to Gordon Brown asking that public sector contracts - which represent 40% of the total - be awarded to established firms that invest in training and upgrading skills. The subtext is that it wants British firms to get the work.

“We have major contracts like the London Olympics and Crossrail,” said Professor Rudi Klein, chief executive of SEC. “Relying on the Polish builder, plumber and electrician to come over and do a quick fix is not sustainable.”

There are still good Polish builders in Britain. Martin Szewczyk, 28, came to Britain in 1999, barely speaking a word of English. He started work as a gardener, sleeping on a friend’s sofa.

Today his company, Property Maintenance, based in Green-ford, west London, employs up to 15 other Poles and he has just bought a £266,000 house for himself, his wife Anna and their one-year-old daughter Julia.

“When I started I worked very hard and I was very cheap. But then you have to pay taxes and the prices have to go up. Sometimes now I find my quotes are more expensive than British builders,” said Szewczyk.

Some job agencies in Poland advertise for unskilled workers and train them in just enough English to get through interviews for jobs in Britain as craftsmen. In Poland, meanwhile, workers are complaining of being undercut by even cheaper Romanians and Ukrainians.

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