Much bolder action is needed by the Treasury to keep the UK’s construction industry afloat, leading architects are warning.

Quantitative easing of the kind used for banks in the 2008 financial crisis, business rate holidays and delays on tax payments will be required to stop good firms going under, they warned.

In yesterday’s teatime update the chancellor announced a £330bn loan fund for struggling businesses that architects will be able to apply to, but he stopped well short of the measures industry leaders were hoping to see.

Former RIBA president Jack Pringle, London principal of global architecture giant Perkins & Will, said what the architecture sector – and the economy in general – required was a form of quantitative easing of the kind used for banks in the 2008 financial crisis to prevent good businesses from going under.

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