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The sorry side of the upswing in construction and why posturing politicians got it wrong again

The sorry side of the upswing in construction and why posturing politicians got it wrong again

For me there’s something dreadfully sad about the timing of the Government’s announcement that it is backing £36 billion worth of planned investment for 2014 and 2015. It will, say the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, support 150,000 construction jobs. This should be greeted with unfettered joy. But I’m afraid I can’t see it that way. How do I see it? Well imagine Government leading a construction industry motorcade, ignoring the road ahead, too busy scanning the crowd…

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Strong growth expected for a construction industry on the mend, but fragilities remains

Strong growth expected for a construction industry on the mend, but fragilities remains

Construction should grow at an average annual rate above 4% for the next four years, if forecasters at the Construction Products Association are right. That’s solid growth. The forecasters upped their expectation for 2014 from 3.4% to 4.5%. But more importantly in my view, the mood of the forecasters was less vexed by downside risks that might blow their forecast off course. The top graph shows how much stronger the recovery seems now compared with a year ago. Before getting overexcited,…

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Cracks are already appearing in the Government strategy on the building materials trade gap

Cracks are already appearing in the Government strategy on the building materials trade gap

The construction industry imports about 10% of its output value in building materials and seems to have done all my adult life at least. Admittedly the figures are a bit ropey, but the pattern looks pretty clear from the top graph. This is important, because the Government’s rather suspect industrial strategy (pdf) for construction has as one of its big targets a 50% cut in the building materials trade gap by 2025. Looking at the current data I reckon that means,…

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The implications of falling homeownership on private house building

The implications of falling homeownership on private house building

Whatever view you take of homeownership it has a powerful influence on how the economy functions and on the type and number of homes that get built. Rapidly growing homeownership in the 1930s and again in the 1950s and 60s corresponded with big surges in private sector house building, particularly in England. (I apologise, but this piece will be mainly based on English data, although not exclusively) But I’m increasingly convinced that it’s not just the level of homeownership or…

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On fears that homeownership is trapped in a doom loop

On fears that homeownership is trapped in a doom loop

The decline in homeownership over the past few years is starting to worry a lot more people a lot more for lots of reasons. The English Housing Survey shows homeownership among households down to 65% from 71%. The DCLG stock figures show a lower level of ownership, falling from a shade about 70% to below 64% almost two years ago. Whatever the precise figures, the subject is filling ever more headlines and pages in think-tank reports. The latest English Housing…

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Painful lessons in the need for common sense and curiosity when dealing with statistics

Painful lessons in the need for common sense and curiosity when dealing with statistics

Last summer Jo Smit of Building for Change asked me to look at a document produced by the Office of National Statistics. It seemed to show energy consumption dropping 25% between 2005 and 2011. The document and some press coverage seemed happy to put this huge drop largely down to energy efficiency. As a big supporter of energy efficiency Jo would naturally be delighted by such findings, if they were true. But being smart and questioning she realised that it…

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Taking the housing debate in an uncomfortable direction – that’s nearly always a good thing

Taking the housing debate in an uncomfortable direction – that’s nearly always a good thing

What two issues in the housing debate do you think deserve more attention than they get? My pick would be growing inequality and poor distribution of owner-occupied housing. There are good reasons why these two linked topics are lower down the problems-to-be-solved list than they should be. The precise effects of increasing inequality and increasingly inefficient distribution of living space are hard to nail. Worst still most of the obvious solutions to them fall into the complex, potentially uncomfortable or…

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Is 2014 the year when house building takes off?

Is 2014 the year when house building takes off?

There are some interesting readings to be taken from the latest house building statistics for England. Starts eased slightly in the fourth quarter, but are still consistent with growth and last year saw 23% more than in 2012 and 10% more than in 2011. Completions look to be perking up, despite remaining at a sadly low level. That said across the year they were 5% down on a year ago and 3% down on 2011. We’ll look into these in…

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Women lead the charge as construction employment rises

Women lead the charge as construction employment rises

Employment in construction grew in the final months of last year 2.6% relative to the same period a year earlier, according to the latest ONS data, providing further evidence of an expanding industry. The figures suggest there were about 56,000 more people working in construction at the end of last year than at the end of the year before. As we can see from the top graph there is a slight rise in employment that corresponds to a rise in…

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How less work led to more growth – lessons in statistics from the latest construction data

How less work led to more growth – lessons in statistics from the latest construction data

Here’s a prime example of why it’s important to use a range of measures and timeframes rather than one single stat when using statistics as a tool to examine or describe whatever you’re interested in. The headline figures from the latest construction statistics say that construction grew in the final quarter of 2013 by 0.2%. This compares with the earlier estimated 0.3% fall released when the first estimate of GDP was published late last month. Looking simply at this changed…

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