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Social housing new build spend up 11% but repairs work drops
The amount of money spent on building new homes in the social housing sector increased by nearly 11% in December but repairs and maintenance spend fell by 6.6%, the latest construction output figures have shown.
The Office for National Statistics’ construction output figures for December found that £587m was spent on delivering new homes in the social housing sector across the month, up by 10.9% when compared with November.
The spend across December 2018 also marked a year-on-year increase, up 4.6% when compared with December 2017.
The rise in public housing new build spend contrasted with private housing output, which saw a drop of 6.8% on November, and 4.6% when compared with December 2017.
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The increase in spend on new build homes for the social housing sector was not matched in social housing for repairs and maintenance in December, with spend dropping by 6.6% to £591m when compared with November.
Despite the December drop-off, the three months up to and including including December (Q4) saw a slight rise of 0.7% in the spend on repairs and maintenance in social housing when compared with the same period last year.
There was a 2.8% drop in output across the whole construction sector, including housing, infrastructure, private industrial, private commercial, and repairs and maintenance sectors.
In total £13.5bn was spent on construction work in the month of December, including £8.97bn in new work and £4.5bn on repairs and maintenance work.
Total output for new build work dropped by 1.6% when compared with November, while repairs and maintenance fell by 5%.
Output across the sector for Q4 dipped by 0.3% when compared with quarter three of 2018, but marked a 0.9% increase on December 2017.
Mark Robinson, chief executive of Scape Group, said: “A boom in November and a strong Q3 could have hoodwinked the industry into thinking it was business as usual, but a sharp decrease in all work highlights the need for the government and local authorities to provide greater transparency on project pipelines to ensure business optimism does not dip as we head into 2019.
Blane Perrotton, managing director of property consultancy Naismiths, said: “Few sectors have seen the economic brakes slammed on as hard as construction.
“Builders’ booming third quarter – in which output rocketed by 2.1% – feels a lifetime away.
“While the final quarter of 2018 can be filed under ‘slowdown’ rather than ‘slide’ – just – such distinctions are moot in an industry which has been stripped of confidence and momentum.”
