Housing slowdown hits Yorkshire and Humber

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Developers across Yorkshire and Humber are mothballing high profile city centre projects while the housing slowdown in the Midlands is badly affecting the leisure market. By Simon Ellery

Peter Lewis, the National Federation of Builders regional chairman for the Midlands, said the housing slowdown is having a knock-on effect in other sectors as schemes that rely on residential elements falter.

He said his firm, IB Construction, often runs around six leisure contracts for clients such as big breweries that would involve thousands of homes built by housing associations.

He added: "We are talking about contracts worth up to £2 million. Currently we only have one. I can't see the situation improving until mid 2010."

He also attacked ministers' £40 billion plan to act as guarantors for mortgages to inject fresh energy into the sector as "the people may become unemployed and because of this find themselves in a worse situation in two years' time".

Westfield has "stopped" its shopping centre development in Bradford, according to the Institute of Civil Engineers, while Linfoot has put its £155 million Lumiere skyscraper residential scheme in Leeds on ice.
Bradford Metropolitan District Council rejected claims its city centre upgrade had stalled.

A spokesman said: "The project is still on track."

Peter Shapland, membership development officer for ICE Yorkshire and Humber, said: "Contractors are seeing a downturn in turnover and enquiries in this region. Public sector funded major highway schemes are becoming a rarity.

"By the middle of 2009, there will only be two major local authority highway schemes on site, and no others being tendered. The upgrading of the M1 and M62 is suffering from paralysis by analysis."

Recruitment agency Hays said large scale Private Finance Initiative and Building Schools for the Future programmes, including ongoing work in North Yorkshire, are fuelling demand for senior planners and quantity surveyors.

But a spokesman added: "Small to medium sized contractors have been the worst hit and we have noticed a growing number of candidates looking to break into other more 'secure' sectors, such as the public sector."

But Hays added that there was strong demand for site managers to work on mixed-use developments in the region, such as the £100 million shopping centre in Leeds city centre. Other projects included the revamp of the A1/M1 link road.

But the public sector is a strong growth area with Government building and maintenance programmes such as work on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and the new 'Titan' prison running across the region providing work.

Four years' of construction growth in the East Midlands looks set to end. But a number of infrastructure projects, including the £345 million scheme to widen the M1 between Derby, Nottingham and Mansfield, due for completion during 2010 and a new station at East Midlands Parkway opening from December, are boosting workloads.

ICE East Midlands chairman John Ottaway said: "There are indications of slowing growth in the region, particularly in the retail and housing sector, although demands for infrastructure over the next five years could offset severe dips."