Report says that the building boom in major northern cities is over.
Contractors working across northern England have been told to brace themselves for a slowdown in major cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.
In its latest quarterly update, cost consultant Davis Langdon said the building boom along the M62 corridor and beyond was coming to an end.
Report author Peter Fordham described Manchester as "probably having had its heyday" and also predicted work to drop off in Liverpool following the completion of a number of major schemes this year, including Grosvenor's Liverpool One – the renamed Paradise Street which is being carried out by Balfour Beatty and Laing O'Rourke.
But Leeds is being picked out as the city where workloads are tailing off the quickest.
Mr Fordham said: "Leeds is a classic example. With its oversupply of apartments, we are now seeing a marked fall in orders in the city." Leeds has been under the microscope in recent weeks after KW Linfoot halted its £155 million Lumière project, which Carillion is due to build.
Meanwhile the city council shelved Simon Developments' £115 million Criterion Place 'Kissing Towers' scheme.
The city has seen hundreds of flats built over the past few years, notably on parcels of former derelict land around the railway station and close to one its main thoroughfares, Wellington Street.
But Mr Fordham said contractors on the other side of the Pennines should also start to worry about work drying up.
He added: "Looking forward over the next couple of years, the North-west is going to be hit and this will be reflected on the ground with the number of schemes going ahead.
"Most of the rebuilding work in Manchester has probably already been done and while there is a lot of work going on in Liverpool, a lot of it will be finishing soon. That is going to leave a big hole in the market there." He added that most cities outside the capital would be hit by a softening market in the coming two to three years.
London is best set to weather the problems, with huge schemes such as the 2012 Olympic Games and a series of extensive tunnelling jobs such as Crossrail.
The report predicted that London prices will rise by 3 to 5 per cent per annum over the next two years but outside the capital it pegged the figure as low as 2 to 3 per cent.
__________________
