I must be one if these rare people that keep bags of sand, ballast and cement always stored in my dry garage to support whenever possible me making and using some concrete ( Classic 3-2-1 mix). Any excuse. Wheelbarrow at the ready. It’s such an amazing material. But read below demand has declined. Banno
Believe it or not, concrete is the most widely-used manmade product on the planet. So what does it say about Britain that demand for it has fallen to a 62-year low?
Figures last week showed ready-mixed concrete volumes were down to 2.7 million cubic metres in the three months to June, the lowest since 1963. This followed an S&P Global report that found construction activity fell at its sharpest rate for five years.
The situation comes as little surprise to Rob Wood, the boss of the UK’s biggest concrete manufacturing facility. Wood, chief executive of Breedon, a £1.3 billion business listed on the London Stock Exchange, bemoaned “a generation of underinvestment in infrastructure and housing”.
“Concrete is the product that really underpins the construction industry,” he added. “But if you look at the state of our infrastructure, whether it is the roads, the hospitals, the schools, water or sewage, or our national grid; we are at 11.59 with a lot of it.” By which he means, if the industry had a doomsday clock, it would be at one minute to midnight.
Ready-mix concrete, made from cement, water and aggregates is the second-most consumed material in the world behind water.
Breedon operates two cement plants and more than 200 ready-mix works. Wood said the fall in demand and the weak construction figures ought to jolt the government into action.
“They have made so many pro-growth statements. They’ve published the industrial strategy… but they need to do something and not just talk about it,” said Wood.
Last week’s figures heap pressure on the government, which has vowed to relax the planning restrictions in an effort to build 1.5 million homes in England between 2024 and 2029.
But it has faced criticism that the Treasury mounted a stealth corporate tax raid by shaking up the way in which landfill tax is charged
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