West Midlands construction activity levels continue to rise

INCREASED construction activity has continued in the West Midlands, according to an industry survey.

And the national workload has reached a 20 year high.

The RICS UK Q3 Construction Market Survey reports that a sharp rise in private housing and private commercial activity has pushed up national workloads at the fastest rate since 1994 while momentum in the Midlands remains high.

Despite the shortage of quantity surveyors throughout the region continuing to grow (65% of respondents cited this issue as a problem), industry workloads continue to make a strong recovery, with 54% more surveyors reporting a rise in activity (up from a net balance of 35% in Q3 last year).

The private housing sector grew robustly across all parts of the UK, with the London and the South East regions seeing the strongest growth.

In the West Midlands a net balance of 59% more surveyors reported an increase in activity in the private housing sector, up 5% on the beginning of the year. In the private commercial sector, workloads also increased strongly throughout the Midlands on the August figures, with a net balance of 74% more surveyors reporting an increase in activity.

However, while still positive, workloads in infrastructure saw much more balanced growth across the Midlands with 29% more surveyors seeing activity levels rise.

Across the whole of the UK, the main factors which were found to be limiting building activity were a shortage of labour, followed by access to finance and a shortage of materials (both a net balance of 58%).

Significantly, demand for bricklayers increased strongly on the previous quarter, with 71% of respondents now saying that this is an issue (compared to 59% in Q2 2014). Planning and regulation factors were the fourth highest limiting factors (a net balance of 51%).

Tim Jones, chair of the West Midlands QS & construction group, said: “This is fantastic news for the region and it is particularly pleasing that both housing and the commercial sectors are showing sustained growth.

“Infrastructure is lagging behind a little, but with significant infrastructure projects in the pipeline this sector also has a promising outlook.

“In the West Midlands we need the Government to continue being supportive in enabling the construction industry to grow and allow us to build on the strong recovery that is happening.

“As an industry we need to respond by increasing investment in training and development of the workforce at all levels and finding ways to encourage new entrants into construction, property and infrastructure sectors.”

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close