Quarter one was tough for bagged cement and aggregate sales as weak construction and housebuilding activity, above average rainfall and the war in Iran affected supply and demand.

The Mineral Products Association’s (MPA) latest report confirms the decline in volumes. Mortar sales were -2% lower than Q4 2025, while primary aggregate sales (-0.8%) and ready-mixed concrete sales (-0.5%) also fell quarter-on-quarter. Q1 asphalt sales were flat (-0.1%), despite increased local authority spending on road maintenance ahead of the end of the financial year.

Behind the stats many contributory factors are out of the industry’s control. Winter 2025/26 was one of the wettest since records began and the persistent rainfall created poor ground conditions for construction.

The war in Iran is having a huge impact on the market and customers. We are trying to keep price increases to a minimum, but rising oil prices affects everything from operational and transport costs to the price of packaging.

For customers, elevated energy costs and market uncertainty is denting business confidence and some major projects, including the OpenAI Stargate project, are being shelved until conditions improve. Big infrastructure projects, such as HS2 and Sizewell C, are pushing up crushed rock volumes (+1% quarter-on-quarter) but there aren’t enough major schemes under construction to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.

Construction demand for housebuilding materials remains low. Weak demand from buyers and a lack of developments in progress means very little is getting built or bought. If we are to see any return to growth in housebuilding this year, we need the Government to work harder to release the bottlenecks in planning and to drive demand and affordability. An updated version of the Help to Buy scheme would certainly support the latter, and we all need to get behind calls from the MPA and campaigns such as Jewson’s Let’s Get Britain Building – NOW!

Despite all this, I am still confident there will be pockets of growth this year. With jet fuel shortages on the horizon, it could be another year for staycations and an uptick in RMI. In Q2 we are already seeing an increase in bagged cement volumes which started when the rain stopped, and it has been sustained. Hopefully this will continue throughout the rest of the year?