Last year saw a fall in construction output of 8.5%, according to information services company Experian.

This was an increase on the group’s forecast in autumn 2012 of 7.5%.

The forecaster has also changed its projections for 2013 and 2014.

It is now predicting a decline of 3.5% and a growth of 0.8% respectively.

Experian said prospects for public housing "remain poor", with output down in the first half of 2012 and expected to fall 22% over the year.

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"Until social housing providers are in a position to access significantly larger tranches of funding from sources other than government, they are stuck with the much lower levels of investment available in the 2011-2015 affordable housing programme," a statement from the group said.

Experian said private housing transactions and mortgage approvals remain around half of their pre-recession levels.

The sector is forecast to have declined 2% in 2012 and to grow 3% in 2013.

Infrastructure output is now expected to have fallen 15% in 2012, but will return to growth of 3% this year.

But repair and maintenance work is expected to perform better than new build in 2012-2014.

Experian said the infrastructure output decline was due to the completion of the M25 widening and the A1 upgrade, and could have been influenced by poor weather in June and suspension of some work during the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics.

(IT)