Construction is booming and there was more construction work undertaken in Britain in the three months to August than in any quarter ever recorded – and that is after the statisticians revised down the figures for June and July by £400 million or so.

No I am not dreaming. That is what the latest figures from the national statisticians at ONS suggest. According to the constant 2005 prices data in the latest figures there was £27,692 million of construction work undertaken in June, July and August.

Check back over the figures and the £27,653 million in the first quarter of 2008 was the highest recorded quarterly figure from the list that stretches back to 1955.

There is of course no seasonal adjustment on these figures, so on a strict like-for-like basis they are not completely comparable. But even so the past three months would be up there with the most productive periods ever for construction if we are to accept these figures.

And here are some other figures you might wish to consider and swill around your mouth before spitting them out.

• 49% more work was done in August than in January.
• In the three months to August there was a third more private housing repair and maintenance done than in the first quarter.
• Public non-housing new building work has doubled since the credit crunch of 2007.
• Public new housing work is running at its highest level since early 1980.
• There is currently more commercial work being undertaken than there was in 2005.

So what is there to whinge about…?

Oh, you don’t believe the figures.

Well I have put together a graph (see above) from the current 2005 prices data series. It crudely interpolates the average monthly figure from the previous quarterly data and presents the monthly data provided since January this year on a three month rolling average basis. See what you think.