Quarter one performed in line with our expectations, with volumes reflecting the general market forecast of a slower start to the year. However, despite warnings that the market would experience further volume decline in Q1, this wasn’t experienced significantly. The signs are for a similar performance across the year ahead.

Spring marked the latest budget announcement from the Chancellor, and while there are some shoots of optimism, there still appears to be little appetite to support new build housing or retrofit sectors.

The Construction Leadership Council’s (CLC) comments ahead of the spring budget summarised well the need for stability and confidence across the supply chain: “Maintaining stability across the sector’s pipeline of projects is the single biggest factor to enable us to enhance productivity, invest in skills and innovation, and ultimately deliver growth for the economy and the infrastructure and housing the UK needs.”

While it remains a challenging time for the industry, it’s encouraging that inflation has dropped below 4% over the first quarter of 2024. Hopefully this will cross over to interest rate cuts and help to stimulate more confidence in the new build market again.

The housing shortfall is likely to be a main topic of any hustings debate in the run-up to a General Election, but it is important that, while this industry still faces uncertainty, innovation and sustainability remain at the forefront for construction manufacturers.

In Q1 we published our updated sustainability roadmap following the considerable progress we made in 2023. We’re keen to continue our momentum in 2024, delivering on our initiatives which aim to minimise waste, re-use materials and tackle emissions to reduce environmental impacts at every stage of build.

Significantly, we began the year preparing operationally for the recent announcement that we are the first building materials manufacturer in the UK to form a strategic partnership with circular economy pallet supplier The Pallet LOOP in a bid to significantly reduce pallet waste. We hope that our partnership will enable us to work with customers to support their own reductions in waste and net zero targets.