Commenting on the UK Budget for 2012, presented at Westminster yesterday by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, the Scottish Building Federation has claimed a crucial opportunity has been missed to create thousands of construction jobs in Scotland and accelerate recovery of the Scottish economy.

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 £300 million worth of shovel-ready infrastructure projects here in Scotland.

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"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 £1.3 billion 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."

He added: "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."

(GK)