By Conor Sharkey
THE downturn in the construction industry could cost Strabane more than 800 jobs and millions of pounds in earnings, an economic report out this week suggests.
The impact study, requested by Strabane Council's Economic Development department, looked at construction industry trends across Strabane over the past ten years and its outlook until 2012.
Optimistic predictions forecast that Strabane will lose 250 construction jobs over the next four years, while a worst case scenario forecast predicts that almost 600 jobs could go.
It is however when the knock-on effect is taken into consideration that the picture starts to look particularly bleak.
The building trade downturn could cost Strabane in the region of £1.5 million in earnings. If this is the case, there would be a massive knock-on impact on the retailing, hotel and restaurant sectors with a further job loss of 280 possible.
The potential loss of 840 jobs would be a massive blow to an area still struggling to recover from the collapse of the textile industry. During that devastating two year period, thousands of jobs were haemorrhaged across the District.
Now, with a similar situation looming, Strabane District Council is seeking an urgent meeting with local members of the Construction and Property Group. Over 50 members of the newly formed builders group took their fight to save thousands of construction sector jobs to Stormont on Monday.
One local member of the Construction and Property Group is Danny Ball of B&D Construction.
He believes negative predictions are beneficial to no-one and an employment crisis can be averted, but only when the banks start to show more flexibility.
"House prices have dropped, yet the banks won't lend anyone money to buy the houses that are already in stock.
"If they showed a bit of flexibility and maybe re-introduced schemes like Co-ownership, then first time buyers could get back in and the wheels could start turning again.
"I know there is a serious problem in the construction industry and has been since last year but is not in the bank's best interest to allow people to go out of business so they need to get real with the problem that is there.
"There has been some movement from them in recent weeks with a a couple of schemes being introduced to help buyers but we need more. With more help from the banks, I can see things start to level out again by next Easter," Mr Ball said.
