Bad Old Days

摘要

The concerns raised by the "Gloomwatch" panel in Building on 14 November were unrelenting but, sadly, backed up by hard facts. Things are not going well, and the tracker survey by Experian in the same issue predicted further declines in construction activity over the next few months.rnClearly, not all firms are on their knees, as headlines might have us believe. Some sectors of construction are doing quite well. The figures show, for example, that civil engineering is coping with the downturn, and that schools and the further and higher education sectors are still providing work forrnlarge and some medium-sized firms. So there is some work out there -just not enough.rnThe government has indicated that public sector schemes will be brought forward to help firms through this crisis. That's fine if it is centrally funded motorway or academies work, but if the decision is left to individual local authorities, the politicians may defer replacing a school or upgrading a road and keep down the council tax instead. Central government has also historically not been all that successful at keeping its construction programmes going, as with Building Schools for the Future and PFI schemes.