No help for Scottish builders

The SBF had lobbying for shovel-ready projects to be given the go ahead. But funding was not forthcoming in today’s budget.

Scottish Building Federation chief executive Michael Levack said: “It is highly regrettable that the chancellor chose to ignore the Scottish government’s plea to release funding for £300m worth of shovel-ready infrastructure projects here in Scotland. The Scottish government’s own estimate suggests that this investment could have supported more than 4,000 jobs across the Scottish economy. The value of construction output from infrastructure projects last year was around £1.3bn or 12% of total industry output. Subject to how quickly these projects could be rolled out, we believe this additional funding could potentially have boosted direct employment in the construction industry alone by up to almost 5,000 jobs.

“There are some interesting ideas coming forward about leveraging private sector investment into road-building and other major infrastructure improvements in the future. But no sign in this budget of the immediate support the construction industry needs to get itself – and the wider economy – back on its feet.”

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