The latest construction market survey published by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors shows that around 45% of surveyors reported a fall in overall workloads for the first three months of 2009 up from a net balance of -47%.

But both private and public housing saw a slight improvement in the number of surveyors reporting falling workloads, with 49% more surveyors reporting a fall than a rise in private housing, up from -66%, and 13% more surveyors reporting a fall than a rise in public housing, seven percent less than the previous quarter.

In the North, overall construction workloads saw a decline across all sectors however, at a slower pace than the rest of the UK with -41% more surveyors reporting a fall rather than a rise, up from -55% at the end of last year.