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Builders see workloads stall in Q3
22/11/10
Edited by Andy Jowett.Builders saw workloads stall and decline during the third quarter of the year as constraints on development finance and government spending cuts hit construction projects, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has said.
In the latest poll of its members, a net 59 per cent said order books were unchanged between July and September compared with the previous three months.
Furthermore, a balance of ten per cent of those that did report a movement said workloads had contracted.
RICS members reported seeing new orders decline from their second-quarter levels in every region of the UK.
Sentiment was also negative for every area of construction.
In light of government spending cuts, a net balance of 32 per cent of surveyors said orders for publicly funded residential property had fallen, the worst reading since the start of the survey in 1994.
RICS chief economist Simon Rubinsohn stated: "Government data shows the construction sector has rebounded more strongly than many anticipated but our latest survey casts considerable doubt on whether this improvement can be sustained."
Builders' output had expanded by four per cent during the third quarter of the year compared with the previous three months, according to the Office for National Statistics.
