RICS survey reveals significant slowdown in construction workload for third quarter.

A RICS survey of the economy has found a significant slowdown in construction workloads in the third quarter after a robust first half of the year. Growth of work in public-sector, non-housing construction has been particularly hard hit.

After almost two years of uninterrupted growth, the proportion of surveyors reporting an increase in activity in this sector was at its lowest for five years in the third quarter of 2004.

The survey reported a subdued picture in the commercial property sector, with the only notable exception being the London-centred office market. And there has been a marked slowdown in the private housing sector, felt most sharply in the north-east of England.