Plant hire firms continued on their journey of rebuilding prices throughout last year with the latest figures from the services producer prices series showing another upward tick. Prices in the final quarter of 2011 were up about 3% on a year ago.

Against consumer price inflation, currently running at 3.6%, and in the face of upward pressure on costs, this hardly suggests times have got easy for the sector.

But with activity recently on the up, see graph, and with firms now adjusted to run closer to full capacity this is cause for relief.

The sector has in all probability been the beneficiary of more civil engineering within the construction workload mix. Civils work is significantly more plant intensive than most aspects of building.

So with a stronger market and more alignment between capacity and demand, the industry has been more able to resist downward pressure on prices.

There is, however, some way to go for plant firms in rebuilding their prices. Currently the services producer prices data suggest that prices for plant hire are still about 3% below the peak in 2006.

Encouragingly on the ground there is optimism, with a view that infrastructure will continue to hold up demand for rental equipment and that private house building is set for strong growth this year, albeit from a low base.