Featured Region: Wales

The past five years have been volatile for Welsh construction activity. Three years of declining values of project starts came to an end in 2010, with a 33% increase compared to the year before. However, decline took hold again in the first half of 2011 and, despite a recovery in the second half of the year, the value of project starts dropped by 2%. This left the value of project starts 19% below where they were in 2007.

Last year again saw a further improvement in project start, maintaining the growth seen in the latter six months of 2011. Wales saw a 20% increase in the value of underlying starts compared with the same period of 2011.  The rise has over the last year has been broadly based with only the utilities and retail sectors experiencing declines.

Looking ahead we anticipate that pressure on public sector budgets will constrain overall project starts, which are forecast to slip back 5% before returning to growth in 2014.

Wales consists of the following Counties: Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan.