Insurance News Archive

Rics: Construction project fall is slowing

Written by Dan Winters

The number of construction workloads carried out in the UK continues to fall, though this trend appears to be slowing, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).

One of the sectors most affected by this gradual change is public and residential housing, with only 13 per cent more surveyors with Rics reporting a fall than a rise in such builds - seven per cent improvement on the previous quarter.

"This slight easing we are seeing in both public and private housing is broadly in line with the figures coming from the government on the number of housing starts, which saw a small rise in the first quarter of 2009," said Simon Rubinsohn, the chief economist at Rics.

He explained that that such statistics can be lined up with recent signs of a "gentle pick-up" in the housing market, with any recovery being a major boost to the UK's escape from the effects of the recession.

Earlier in the month, Rics explained that another way market recovery would happen would be through quantitative easing, highlighting the issue of poor mortgage finance availability following the decision by the Bank of England to make no changes to the interest rate.

27 May 2009