Repair and maintenance provided the main downward pressure on construction output, shrinking month-on-month by 1.8%.

But despite output shrinking in each of the first three months of the year, the quarter as a whole was still better than the last quarter of 2016.

According to data from the Office for National Statistics, Q1 2017 was up 0.2% on Q4 2016.

ISO 20 400 has been in development since 2013 involving organisations from 40 countries. By implementing the standard and completing the assessment, Balfour Beatty has demonstrated that it has a sustainable procurement strategy in place.

Aaron Reid, head of sustainable procurement at Balfour Beatty, said: “We are extremely proud to be the first company in the world assessed against ISO 20400. The standard gives us a clear framework to determine ‘what good looks like’ in terms of sustainable procurement and how we compare against it.

London saw 3.9 million sq ft (362,000 m2) of new office space completed in the last six months, delivering the largest volume of office space in central London for 13 years.

The London Office Crane Survey, published by Deloitte Real Estate, has recorded 28 new construction starts over six months, compared to 40 in the previous survey. In terms of volume, this adds 3.2 million sq ft into the development pipeline, a rise of 13%. Despite this, the total office space currently under construction across the capital is now 13.9 million sq ft, a 6% decrease from the previous survey (14.8 million sq ft).

It may have slipped under your radar that the finalists for the 2017 Wolfson Economics Prize – the world’s second-biggest economics prize after Nobel’s version – were announced two weeks ago.

Why has this got anything to do with our industry? Because 2017’s prize question is: ‘How can we pay for better, safer, more reliable roads in a way that is fair to road users and good for the economy and the environment?’

Questions around roads funding are always relevant to those working in the infrastructure sector, so the proposed ideas all make interesting reading.