In Q3 2024 the construction industry looked for tangible short-medium term government assistance to boost the supply and demand of residential home building. For example, some quick win stimuli to boost home building driven through stamp duty, or additional first-time buyer support to help increase demand. This did not materialise and, instead, we got increases in National Living Wage and National Insurance contributions. There are however some positive signals, around planning and land release for future home building, which should set up an increase in medium-long term home building.

In my last comments for the BMBI, I called for stability in the UK economy following four years of volatility and unpredictability. This has been one of the positives in 2024 so far. With inflation stabilising this has driven a reduction in interest rates. Stability is important to allow all parts of the housing delivery supply network to finally re-base themselves and start to work on affecting meaningful positive change via collaboration and partnerships. Polypipe Building Products’ customers have started to benefit from the fruits of our efforts to strike up real partnerships with like-minded and strategically aligned businesses. Establishing close, direct connections between support functions of our respective businesses has been a foundation step to engraining the voice of the customer, and a problem-solving culture, into everything we do.

A key focus for Q4 2024 and 2025 will be ensuring that we, and our partners, are fully prepared for growth. Despite the lack of short-term support for growth, the government has consistently reiterated targets for housing delivery to increase substantially to 300,000 homes a year. To do this, all stakeholders in the home building supply chain must have actionable plans in place to expand output to meet potential future demand. Working together with customers to innovate and modernise is a key enabler for growth, and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) is one of those keys. Be it via offsite construction, pre-assembled parts, optimised design, or improving on-site processes, the opportunity to revolutionise UK construction is vast. Polypipe Building Products will be front and centre of the MMC movement to create sustainable living… faster, and more of it!