Construction Update: 24th April 2020
Keeping you up to date
I am the Chief Economist at Barbour ABI and AMA Research, providing analysis and economic insight for the construction industry. This is the sixth of our weekly briefings on the developments of Coronavirus and the impact on our industry.
Stay safe!
Tom Hall, Chief Economist
COVID-19 Construction Update #6
We want to ensure that our clients have the most up to date information available to them and as such this is the sixth in a weekly series of briefings on the impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic on the construction industry. As part of your subscription, each week we will be providing:
- • A view of what's happening on the ground and what we can see from future planning
- • Help and support you may find useful during this difficult time
As you can imagine the situation is changing on a daily basis. We will do our best to support you with timely and accurate information to allow you to effectively manage your business at this difficult and unprecedented time.
To access the full report please click here
Construction Industry & Project Activity
This week has seen a £23bn increase in active construction projects. The value of open projects now stands at £40bn, excluding the single large £23bn project of Hinkley Point.
We have also seperated active projects into two streams: those confirmed open and those restarted. The restarted value is £11bn (412 by number) and the confirmed open value is £29bn (1,135 by number).
Over the course of the week many major housebuilders have announced a reopening of sites. We expect this to continue to increase over the coming weeks.
Impact by sector and region
There remain health and safety concerns in London, especially due to the need to use public transport to travel to work and the difficulties working in close quarters in urban areas.
For the UK as a whole, the most projects restarting are in the Residential sector.
In terms of relative market size, the largest restarts in London have been in the Hotel & Leisure, Infrastructure and Medical sectors (although Residential has the largest project restarts by overall value in London).