The good news may be rolling in from where the Prime Minister is standing but for construction folk the news just gets bleaker.

Last week we saw the normally optimistic commentary that accompanies the Markit/CIPS construction survey use some very depressing language. It sees a long bleak winter ahead for the industry.

And the latest agents’ report from the Bank of England also supports the view that construction activity is weakening.

This week we have the release of the pan-construction-industry survey. Its headline: “Pessimism Grips Whole Construction Industry in Q3”.

The survey compiled by the Construction Products Association points to the collapse in workloads in sectors previously seeming to shrug off the recession.

Infrastructure and private housing now appear as downbeat sectors in this latest survey.

Much of this had been expected. But what the survey does is add more weight to the growing evidence that this second nasty dip into recession will be unpleasant and worse than many economists and commentators observing the industry from the outside had expected.

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