Building firm, new, small lorry, almost on time (9)
I believe the answer is:
construct
'building' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'firm new small lorry almost on time' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'firm' could be 'co' (a firm is a company) and 'co' is present in the answer.
'new' could be 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament) and 'n' is located in the answer.
'small' could be 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size) and 's' is located in the answer.
'time' could be 't' (abbreviation) and 't' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for construct that I've seen before include "Build, make" , "Engineer" , "Build, fabricate" , "Put together out of components or parts" , "Build; theory" .)