Despite improvement in the building industry in Great Britain, according to a survey, NI's construction sector is still suffering a significant downturn

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) survey said last week that while an improvement in public spending had helped some British regions Northern Ireland companies reported falling workloads.

The Construction Market Survey also showed that firms feared the picture would not improve over the next year.

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"Development finance is still very much in short supply and the Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland has come under a large amount of pressure so it is not surprising that workloads in Northern Ireland are still falling significantly," RICS Northern Ireland spokesman John Davidson said.

The survey found 51% of Northern Ireland chartered surveyors questioned said their workloads had fallen in the period between July and September.

This compared to a net balance of 6% for those surveyed in Britain.

Across all sectors, Northern Ireland had a higher proportion of chartered surveyors reporting falling workloads compared to any region of Britain, with the public-housing construction sector being the most negative.

The only sectors of the industry to improve were infrastructure and private housing but both remained firmly in negative territory and were more negative than in Britain.

(BMcC/GK)