While ONS figures published last week show that construction output declined 0.2% in November 2016 (following a 0.6% fall in October and a 0.8% contraction recorded in the third quarter of 2016), private house building output reportedly rose to highest level since 2010.
Rebecca Larkin, senior economist at the Construction Products Association, commented: “Overall weakness in official construction output data looks to have persisted in the final three months of 2016, which stands in contrast to other industry surveys. One common theme reported in recent months, however, is the outperformance of private housing relative to other sectors such as commercial, industrial and repair and maintenance. In November, private housing output rose 0.5% to reach the highest level since 2010 and compared to a year earlier, output increased 12.5%. Activity has no doubt been sustained by government support measures such as Help to Buy, strong growth in house prices and the availability of low-interest mortgages.
“Economic and political uncertainty is expected to intensify this year and combined with rising inflation denting confidence, means we are unlikely to see similar growth rates in private housing in 2017. Public housing, on the other hand, increased 5.6% in November and whilst monthly data can be volatile, this could signal a pickup in public sector house building after activity has been disrupted by two years of changes to funding programmes.”
