Infrastructure projects keep builders busy

Work on rail infrastructure, such as repairs to the Slough to Windsor railway viaduct, have kept building contractors busy
Work on rail infrastructure, such as repairs to the Slough to Windsor railway viaduct, have kept building contractors busy
ALAMY

Building railways, widening roads, extending broadband, erecting nuclear power stations and wind farms and modernising power networks and water mains is keeping the construction industry going as it suffers a lack of investment on the high street and in city centres.

In the last quarter of 2020, before the latest lockdowns, construction industry workloads increased for the first time since 2019, according to data from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the professional body.

The data — expressed as the percentage of those reporting increased workloads minus the percentage suffering decreases — found a net 2 per cent were busier in the three months between October and December. That compares with -7 per cent between July and September, when the industry was hit by