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Construction suffers amid spending cuts
CONSTRUCTION work in major cities such as Leeds declined in the second quarter of the year, as fears over public spending cuts and uncertainty about the economy hit the building industry.
Despite some encouraging signs at the beginning of the year, the data shows seven per cent more surveyors reporting a fall rather than a rise in construction workloads. Most sectors of the construction industry experienced a drop in workloads, although private commercial and residential were both broadly unchanged.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in light of cuts to budgets, public housing and other public works were the worst affected sectors, with the net balances sliding from 3 to -26 and 0 to -33 respectively. The large fall in the public works sector has been attributed to the suspension of the Building Schools for the Future programme.
In the north of England the number of chartered surveyors in the region reporting reduced workloads increased to 15 per cent from 7 per cent last quarter. This is now the eighth consecutive month that workloads have fallen in the North.
Fragile
RICS Yorkshire & Humber construction sector spokesperson Kevin Wood, of Walker Sime in Leeds, said: "The Construction Market Survey reflects the extremely fragile state of the industry and in particular demonstrates how badly affected our region has been by the recession.
"The uncertainty regarding Government spending cuts and the lack of available development funds from the banking sector are continuing to suppress the construction workload in our region and stifling what little development potential that may be out there.
"Until there is a clear lead from Government on spending plans this uncertainty will remain and confidence in the sector will remain low.
"Any optimism from early 2010 has now declined and there is a very difficult time ahead for all surveyors in our region."
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Weather for Leeds
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
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Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
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Wind direction: North east
