Housing activity dives 5% in July as construction stagnates

Private house building slumped nearly 5% in July as weakening new work left construction output bumping along the bottom.
The sharp fall in housing activity in July, dragged total new work down 0.4% with only infrastructure showing signs of growth.
A 0.8% rise in repair and maintenance, historically an erratic figure in the Government official data, was enough to offset most of the decline, leaving overall construction output just 0.1% higher in July.
But the wider three-month trend figures show