Affordable housing and more help for first-time buyers will make a “real and positive” difference to Scotland’s building industry as it recovers from the financial downturn, an industry chief said yesterday.
Scottish Building Federation managing director Vaughan Hart was speaking after new figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed a small improvement in UK construction output in the final quarter of 2013.
But there was no regional breakdown from the ONS, and Mr Hart said the trading climate in Scotland differed greatly from the rest of the United Kingdom.
He added: “It’s encouraging to note signs of continuing recovery in the industry as we look back at the final quarter of 2013.
“Q4 statistics for the Scottish industry are not yet available, but looking at the industry’s performance over the first nine months of 2013 the nature of that recovery is very different in Scotland compared to the UK as a whole.
“Across the UK as a whole, recovery has been almost exclusively driven by a 10% rise in new housing output.
“Up to September, the Scottish industry actually saw housing output fall by 8% last year.
“This was offset by strong growth in infrastructure and private commercial activity over that period, leading to a 6% rise in output overall.”
Mr Hart said major infrastructure projects, such as the Queensferry Crossing across the Firth of Forth, were “significantly” helping the industry north of the border.
A “strong rebound” in the commercial property market in Scotland was also encouraging, he added.
But public investment affordable housing and continued government support for schemes to help people on to the property ladder would be a real fillip for the construction industry as the economy battled its way out of its recent slump, he said.
The seasonally adjusted ONS estimate showed UK construction output grew by an 0.2%, compared with a year earlier, during the final three months of 2013.