Social housing and education building received a surprise boost in Chancellor George Osborne's announcement of his first wave of public spending cuts. As expected, Osborne took the axe to every government department in a sweeping £6.2bn cuts package.
Osborne warned that £1.7bn of contracts with current suppliers to the government would be stopped or delayed to allow rates to be negotiated down.
A further £600m will be saved from quangos and £150m cut from the Government's overall housing budget.
But some of the savings are to be reinvested into much-needed building work. Some £170m of savings will be redirected into building 4,000 social homes, an extra £50m will go into the education college capital spending pot and £150m spent on kick-starting apprenticeship programmes.
The first round concentrates on saving cash by freezing civil service recruitment and slashing budgets spent on day-to-day operations by departments.
Deeper cuts are expected in the Chancellor's first budget on June 22 and the public spending review later in the year.
Richard Diment, director-general of the Federation of Master Builders said: "The new Government is quickly facing up to the difficult financial challenges that this country faces and the need to get public debt back under control.
"Spending decisions over the coming months will inevitably have an impact on the construction sector but it is encouraging that the Government recognises the need to invest in growth and the importance of training and housing in delivering this.
"The reallocation of £150m for adult apprenticeships and the £170m for social housing from the overall savings announced, demonstrates that the Government understand that these issues remain a priority even in such difficult economic circumstances."
Today the Department for Transport confirmed that improvements to the A23, the widening of the A453, and phase three of the M6 Birmingham box are to be deferred because of the spending cuts.
The Dft has been set the task of saving £683m by the chancellor. 
