Builders want jobs protected

AN influential construction company has called for the Scottish Government to create a "safety net" before more jobs are lost in the industry.

Edinburgh-based Homes for Scotland said it wanted Holyrood to deal with the repercussions of the global credit crunch and address what it described as a "critical situation".

Chief executive Jonathan Fair said: "New-build starts in Scotland were down by almost 50 per cent in the last quarter, a trend which has already resulted in up to 15,000 redundancies.

"We are now facing job losses within home building that are already more than ten times the level seen at Ravenscraig in 1992. A support package which is appropriate to the scale of this crisis is urgently required."