A lot has happened since I wrote my comments for the Q1 BMBI report. We are now in the middle of another US Presidential race, waiting for a new president to be elected, and we’ve seen a change in UK leadership with Labour’s win. Both will affect the UK economy one way or another. At Polypipe Building Products, we’re pleased to hear the Prime Minister and cabinet, and His Majesty King Charles in his recent King’s Speech, pushed planning reform as the key to building more homes. The early noises are promising in that the target is fundamental changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to allow more building on green and grey belt land, as well as reintroducing mandatory targets at a local level. What the UK housing market really needs though is a long-awaited period of consistency and a return to some degree of predictability, which we haven’t had for many years.

The Construction Products Association’s latest forecast for the private and public housing market for this year has been downgraded again, having originally forecast 2024 to be the start of a return to growth in overall activity. What we have seen in H1 2024 is indeed a growth in housing starts, but a much slower and gradual increase than would be required to fully recover from the heavy decline the market experienced in H2 2023.

As a supplier to the housing industry, we believe that partnerships are rapidly becoming an extremely important common theme throughout the whole industry. But the reasons that businesses work with each other in 2024 and beyond is very different to how it has traditionally been. Strategic Partnerships, based on alignment, values and behaviours, joint customer-focused solutioning, data sharing, long-term planning and working with rather than for one another, is proving to be far more valuable in real terms than just a price on a tender document. Polypipe Building Products is eager to grow our Strategic Partnerships to collaborate with customers to deliver sustainable building solutions, which will ultimately make better homes, for more people, more efficiently and sustainably.

What does that look like in practice? See examples of partnering customers to create solutions to create sustainable living here: Case studies | Polypipe