Britain’s builders were forced to down tools by February’s floods and storms, official statistics showed today, with the Met Office reporting that it was the wettest winter in England and Wales since records began in 1766.
Total output fell by 2.8% from January, as exceptionally bad weather afflicted large areas of the country, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Private house building was the worst affected, shrinking by 6.3%. Infrastructure was also hit hard, sliding by 3.7%.
However, the construction setback followed a 2.1% increase in output in January and activity remains 2.8% higher than in the same month a year ago. Over the three months to February output was up 0.3% on the preceding quarter and industry surveys suggest that building activity recovered in March.
“Construction output will hopefully have seen a marked rebound in March given the much better weather and seemingly healthy underlying business,” said Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight.
The construction sector, which accounts for just over 6% of the economy, has been boosted during the past year by a sharp recovery in house prices and the Government’s mortgage and building subsidies.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported this week that the housing boom, which had previously been concentrated on London and the South-East, is now spreading across the country.
In 2013 construction helped to lift overall GDP growth to 1.7%, the strongest performance since 2007.
But analysts cautioned that the building sector was now unlikely to contribute to growth in the first quarter of 2014. “Even if we get a reasonable bounce-back in March, today’s figure should hold back overall growth,” said Alan Clarke of Scotiabank.
Construction output fell by a fifth in the 2008/9 recession. Output today remains 13% below its peak in the first quarter of 2008.
