Nearly 40,000 construction companies have defaulted on repaying their Covid-19 bounce back loans of up to £50,000 each.

That’s 15% of the 260,912 government-guaranteed loans issued to construction companies.

In total, the bounce back loans given to construction companies amounted to £7.68billion.

The figures come from data obtained under a Freedom of Information enquiry by Construction News.

Another 679 building companies have defaulted on the higher-value (up to £5million a time) Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILs) – that’s 4% of all such loans to construction companies. And construction received 17% of all CBILs.

Construction News reports DRS Bond Management director Chris Davies as saying: “Banks were notoriously negative toward construction companies before the Covid-loan schemes and the only reason they were lent to during the Covid-loan period was the government guarantees.”