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Tag: infrastructure

Bright prospects ahead for construction. That’s the forecasters’ view

Bright prospects ahead for construction. That’s the forecasters’ view

UK construction by 2018 will have witnessed a five-year growth spurt not seen since the 1980s. That’s what is suggested by the majority verdict among the latest batch of industry forecasts. Taking Construction Products Association forecast numbers, from 2013 to 2018 the industry output will have expanded by a quarter. Only in the post-War era up to the 1960s and in the late 1980s did construction enjoy growth of that magnitude over a five-year period. This will, if it happens,…

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A £20 billion repair bill to fix the UK construction industry after the recession

A £20 billion repair bill to fix the UK construction industry after the recession

Just what has been the cost to construction of the recession? Could and should policymakers have made the slump in activity less painful? Were there better policy options? These questions need desperate attention. Mistakes were made. Bad and avoidable mistakes, in my view. Lessons must be learned. Construction is a strategic industry. Having a construction industry is not an option for any nation. That makes it special, like health, education or defence. Recessions can disproportionately hit construction. The damage, however, will…

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Forecasts paint a brighter future for building, but infrastructure data clouds the picture

Forecasts paint a brighter future for building, but infrastructure data clouds the picture

The latest batch of construction industry forecasts out this week paint a brighter picture of growth for building in Britain, but a confused picture for prospects in the infrastructure sector. I’ll turn to the confusion later, but for now it’s safe to say that, taken as a whole, the forecasts reflect and seem to support the general improvement in confidence within construction. Despite recurring concerns over persisting fragility within the global economy, Europe in particular, the Construction Products Association (CPA)…

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More a house-building recovery than a construction recovery – so far at least

More a house-building recovery than a construction recovery – so far at least

Construction output grew 0.6% in the first quarter of this year. That’s up on an earlier estimate of 0.3% in the first release of the GDP figures. Work done in the first three month was 5.4% more than in the same period a year earlier. That’s the very encouraging headline story from the latest ONS construction output data. And we can be more encouraged given the iffier-than-normal weather at the start of this year. This provides reasons to think that…

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Forecasters see spring in the step of construction with fewer dark clouds on the horizon

Forecasters see spring in the step of construction with fewer dark clouds on the horizon

The latest set of construction forecasts from Experian, the Construction Products Association and Hewes all exude greater confidence than those released at the start of the year. There were few radical changes to the expected numbers above adjustments that would naturally be made to accommodate new data. But the sentiment is more encouraging, with concerns over downside risks easing. Indeed Experian suggest that the balance of risk within its forecast has probably shifted to the upside. The downside risks of…

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The construction industry is £1.5 billion bigger and growing faster than we thought last month

The construction industry is £1.5 billion bigger and growing faster than we thought last month

The annual turnover of the construction industry is about £1.5 billion bigger than we thought it was last month and it is growing much faster. That really is the big story from the latest estimate of construction output made by the Office for National Statistics. This is pretty big news. It means that the estimate for GDP will be boosted by about 0.1% as a result of the revisions to the construction output data. So we should expect to see…

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August dip of no concern as signs grow that construction is pulling out of recession

August dip of no concern as signs grow that construction is pulling out of recession

Despite the slight tick downward in the ONS seasonally adjusted construction output figure for August the signs are growing that the industry is pulling out of recession. There are many ways to measure growth, but looked at on a 12-month rolling basis output (using the non-seasonally adjusted data) seems to have bottomed out in May 2013 and we have now seen three months of improvement. This is clear from the graph, which also shows that measured on a three-monthly basis…

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Today’s GDP figures and why I think Government remains totally wrong on construction

Today’s GDP figures and why I think Government remains totally wrong on construction

The GDP data provided the Chancellor George Osborne with solace. The 0.3% quarterly rise allowed him to suggest the figures provided evidence that the economy is healing. Had the figures shown a decline he would have been fending off a huge amount of flak. That’s politics. But the figures mean little in the grand scheme of things unless they work some magic on the animal spirits within the economy. The economy is probably rising very gently, but far too slowly…

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The latest construction output figures are very disturbing

The latest construction output figures are very disturbing

The graph probably says it all. The construction output figures are looking very disturbing. This will not come as a surprise to many, but the confirmation of fears provides little solace. Yes we can blame the weather. Yes we can note that the figures bounce about a lot. Yes we can find comfort in the possibility of revisions. But as they stand and as far as you can make out from the historic data the figures suggest that construction probably…

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Why GDP growth is the most likely salvation for construction

Why GDP growth is the most likely salvation for construction

There’s constant talk of this growth policy and that growth policy centred on construction. Big-looking numbers are bandied about. Then not a lot happens. Perhaps that’s just politics in the modern media age where it is assumed that the memory of past policies is overwritten by the latest. Cynicism aside, while the flim flam and bluster of politics is a barrier to getting useful things done, more worrying to me is a seeming lack of understanding of scale. Put simply…

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