The Vinden Partnership says increase in housebuilding is a much needed boost.
The Office of National Statistics has released February’s figures for the construction industry revealing that output in the sector was slightly down on January’s figures.
Construction industry output dropped for the second successive month, falling by 0.3% in comparison to January. This was the first time the construction industry had shrunk two consecutive months since June last year.
Output, however, was up 0.3% on the same period in 2015.
All new work (0.2%) and repair and maintenance (0.5%) saw a fall in output. The small private industrial sub-sector, which includes such projects as the building of new factories, experienced a sharp fall of 9.7%.
There was positive news from the housebuilding sector in February, however, with a month on month increase of 2.9%. In the three months to February, there was a growth of 6.7% when compared to previous three months. This was the fastest growth rate in this sector in almost two years.
Peter Vinden, Managing Director of The Vinden Partnership – a leading multi-disciplinary consultant company to the built environment – said: “As we saw with the Markit/CIPS UK Construction PMI earlier in the month, the construction industry is still suffering from the economic uncertainty stemming from the European Union referendum in June.
“I don’t expect this to change one way or another until we have our answer on this issue.
“The increase in private housebuilding reported in these figures is encouraging, however. For months we have talked of the need for the acceleration of housebuilding in the UK and have only recently seen disappointing numbers on that score. Let’s hope this is the start of significant movement on the upward curve we need to see if the demand coming from people wanting to get on the property ladder is be met.”
The post Reaction to latest ONS construction industry output figures appeared first on UK Construction Online.
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