08/06/2009 by David Slade.

Government construction output figures for the first three months of 2009 highlight the biggest falls on record, the Construction Products Association has warned.

The Office for National Statistics figures show construction output fell an 16 per cent in Q1 2009 compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

The fall is in line with the Construction Products Association’s own forecasts.

The Association’s economics director Noble Francis said: “A large number of jobs have already been lost and there is clearly a lot of pain still to be had.”

Other figures from the report showed that industrial new build fell 40 per cent compared to a year ago and

Output in the commercial sector fell by 26 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier.

Over 25 per cent of the sector has been lost in the past year and with new orders in commercial falling 55 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier, output will be expected to fall further.

Even in infrastructure, expected to be buoyed by significant workloads in rail, output in the first quarter of 2009 was 5 per cent lower than one year earlier.

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05/06/2009 by David Slade.

Leading debt collector LPL, which has more than 200 construction firms on its books, said there has been a 32 per cent rise in builders calling upon its services in the last two months.

Contractors are increasingly calling on the services of debt collectors with businesses refusing to pay contractors for work not properly costed and agreed.

The number of debt collection instructions LPL received from construction firms totalled 6,516 over the last two months compared with 4,937 for the first three months of the year.

LPL said the average debt totalled £12,500 adding up to an average of £80 million outstanding.

LPL warned contractors to get their paperwork in order, or risk never recovering the money.

Managing director Stephen Lewis said: “Businesses are feeling the pinch and are delaying payment on the grounds that work has not been properly costed and agreed.

“Extra work that has been carried out on a simple ‘OK go ahead’ basis is coming back to haunt them when the invoice is presented. And sometimes contractors only have themselves to blame.

“If the paperwork is in order, however, the chances of recovery – either with or without litigation – are dramatically improved.”

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