However we see a bullish mood in the industry building a positive momentum out there right now, and just as we all talked ourselves into this recession there is a mood of confidence growing amongst the industry leaders that is saying ‘enough is enough’ let’s talk ourselves back out.

Nevertheless it's been a tough fall and tender prices continue to decline and now sit around the levels of 2003, new orders for construction continue to fall quarter on quarter, and the number of construction jobs fell by 17,000 in the 3rd quarter of last year all of which is the hard statistical proof of the market collapse. The brief recovery of 2009 now seems a long and distant memory.

The Coalition Government is now looking to the private sector to fill the market void left by the public sector, and the private sector; already carrying record levels of debt; are looking to banks to start lending to them again to stimulate the recovery.

It's a risky strategy for the Government and one that, given the low level of market confidence is one that is going to take time to deliver a meaningful recovery. The much needed market confidence has to be bank led, but by their own economists admission they struggle to predict where the market trends are heading with inflationary forecasts contradicting one another and saving levels falling away as interest rates remain unattractive to savers. The one area where there is general agreement is that interest rates will remain at the current record lows for a significant time to come.

Yet amongst all this doom there are signs that the those well quoted ‘green shoots of recovery' we saw in 2009 are showing early signs of reappearing, the small recovery in business and consumer spending is a positive development, although no doubt fuelled by the unattractiveness of saving rates returns, and whilst this is forecast to remain modest in the short term nevertheless it is a move in the right direction.

There are clear signs that vacancy levels are up as companies start to position themselves for the recovery and Evans Jones own expansion plans demonstrate the confidence we all have that although 2011 may still well be a tough year, it will be a year that sees cost and market trends level out with a more positive market growth forecast for early 2012.

Tim Sluman is the Head of Evans Jones Project, providing Quantity Surveying and Project Management services to the Commercial sector. To discuss your project please contact Tim by email of give him a call on 01242 531316.