Suppliers ready for uptick in housing and infrastructure demands | Construction News

Suppliers have said they are confident they can meet any extra demand for materials generated by the government’s ambition to increase housebuilding and infrastructure activity.

Industry experts said there would not be an immediate increase in demand on supply chains but added that suppliers were ready to step up activity. But ministers were also cautioned that they would need to provide more detail so long-term resilience could be planned in.

Ambitious targets that include building 1.5 million new homes over the next four years and major projects including sustainable energy, railway and water supply upgrades were pledged as part of the King’s Speech programme yesterday (17 July).

Manufacturers signalled they could move fast as there are currently good levels of inventory for UK construction materials.

Brickability chairman John Richards told Construction News: “The industry can turn on quickly to meet demand and it would be welcomed. We are ready and waiting.

“For GB-made bricks, manufacturers can quickly increase output at existing factories, and ‘mothballed’ factories can be reactivated within a few months to further boost production. In Europe, again there are good inventories to call upon plus the opportunity to increase production quickly.

“European manufacturers are eager for our orders and we’ve had our senior teams in Europe this week, in anticipation of increased demand. There are similar stories for other construction materials, such as cladding products, towel radiators, ceramics and roof tiles.”

But there were also warnings that additional investment would be needed because manufacturing capacity has been reduced since 2020.

Rebecca Larkin, head of construction research at the Construction Products Association, said: “If the new government can provide the detail and get things moving to build confidence that their plans will be delivered, then that will help with manufacturers’ confidence to go ahead with the large upfront investments needed to increase capacity to be able to meet the increased demand for products and materials further down the line at construction.”

Allan Wilen, economics director at Glenigan, said the demand created by the first projects starting would be met but investment in capacity would be needed as more work got underway.

“Construction activity has been subdued for a number of years so there should be sufficient capacity to accommodate the initial upturn in construction activity that the government is looking to encourage,” he said. “Longer term, a substantial step-change in housebuilding and other areas such as infrastructure development does suggest that an increase in new capacity may be required. A progressive rise in activity and industry confidence that the rise in housebuilding and other areas will be sustained will be needed to attract the required investment new capacity.”