House builders warned of upcoming crisis

Jun 1 2008 By Mark Aitken, Political Editor

SCOTTISH house builders have been warned they face a crisis as the credit crunch bites.

Industry chief Jonathan Fair made the warning in a confidential email to the heads of the country's biggest construction companies.

Fair wrote: "The daily feedback I am getting from members is becoming increasingly severe, with April and May performance continuing to slide further.

"The current mortgage famine is having a marked and increasingly severe impact on our Scottish members.

"I am not prone to overstatement but if this continues unabashed, it will have significant long-term economic repercussions here.

"There is no longer any doubt that housing output and other large-scale redevelopment proposals are definitely going to slide over the next 12 months."

Fair is chief executive of Homes for Scotland, which represents private house builders.

He has called for a meeting with government ministers John Swinney and Stewart Maxwell.

He wrote: "I think there are things the Scottish Government need to be giving serious consideration to in the short-medium term to try to ensure as soft a landing as possible for us all."