Reaction to latest ONS construction industry output figures

The Vinden Partnership says drop is “disappointing” but remain optimistic for 2016.

The Office of National Statistics has today released its construction industry output figures for November.

Despite predictions of an increase of 0.5%, output fell by the same amount with the ONS citing the terrible weather that’s been hitting the country as a possible reason.

The lack of new work was a major contributing factor with a 0.7% decrease, while repair and maintenance also 0.2%.

There was some growth experienced within certain sectors with the housing sector seeing growth of 0.9%. The ONS said the increased growth in housing was attributable to the construction of student housing and the growth in house building matched October’s house price inflation, where the HPI increased by 0.8% over the month.

Growth was also seen within certain sectors of new work with public other (2.3%) and private industrial (1.7%) seeing rises. These were offset, however, by shortfalls in infrastructure and private commercial work of 4.3% and 1.5% respectively.

Peter Vinden, the Managing Director of The Vinden Partnership – a leading multi-disciplinary consultant company to the built environment – said: “The figures are slightly disappointing but they seem at odds with some of the more optimistic numbers we have seen recently.

“We see many fluctuations in these statistics over the course of the year but I think that there is rightly a lot of optimism coming from the construction companies for the year ahead.

“I expect the construction industry to play its part in strengthening the UK’s economy.”

 

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