Following a series of surprise reports from the Office for National Statistics on the performance of the UK construction sector a number of industry commentators have questioned their accuracy. Most recently the Construction Products Association has expressed "serious doubt". Commenting on the CPA's latest construction survey, Economics Director, Noble Francis said: "The situation for construction product manufacturers remained challenging in the first quarter of 2011 yet this is a considerable improvement on 2010 Q4 which suffered greatly from the impacts of the bad weather in November and December. 48% of manufacturers reported that sales of construction products rose in 2011 Q1, compared to just 14% in 2010 Q4. Yet the scale of the fall in the official figures is extremely surprising and inconsistent with information from this survey and anecdotal evidence from the industry."

However, not all commentators agree with the CPA. Commenting on the ONS reported 4.7% contraction in output in a recent briefing Glenigan say that it is clear that a stagnant property market, faltering business confidence and government cutbacks are significant obstacles to growth. Glenigan's own data has shown a significant slowdown in project starts over the past six months, meaning the reduction in output was to be expected. Government funding cuts has affected the level of social housing, education and health building. In addition, the cuts and weak economic environment have added to private sector worries stoked by high inflation, poor retail sales and a depressed house market. The value of private housing project starts has contracted sharply over the last three months, while office and industrial construction has been in the doldrums for much of the last three years.

For housing, data recently released by Land Registry shows house prices fell by 1.1% in March, with an annual fall of 2.3%. On a positive note the NHBC report that new home registrations reached the highest monthly number for over three years in March. This figure equates to a 21% increase year-on-year. Council of Mortgage Lenders chief economist Bob Pannell said: "The housing market has emerged hesitantly from hibernation. Lenders expect mortgage credit availability to improve this quarter, and this should help to underpin house purchase activity albeit at pretty low levels."

Just published is the Renewable Energy Review, commissioned by the Coalition Government in May 2010. Overall conclusion is that there is scope for significant increase of renewable energy from 3% up to 45% by 2030. They state that offshore wind is more expensive than nuclear and propose that by 2030 nuclear provides 40% and renewable energy 40% of our electricity needs. The remainder coming from coal and gas.

They consider that it would be possible to decarbonise electricity generation with very significant nuclear deployment and have limited renewable, using carbon capture and storage as a cost-effective technology to allow continuation of coal and gas.

Repeating their previous report the committee recommend that new policies are required to support technology innovation and to address barriers to uptake in order to suitably develop renewables as an option for future decarbonisation.