Brick stocks rise to highest level for two years

The past month has seen yet more improvements in the balance of product demand and supply, according to builders merchants and materials producers with good availability for most construction products and prices no longer as volatile.

According to the Construction Leadership Council’s Product Availability working group, the housing slowdown has allowed brick manufacturers to rebuild stocks to their highest levels since May 2021.

While there are some exceptions, manufacturers are reporting up to 8 weeks supply for most brick types at current demand levels.

In December alone brick and block deliveries fell by 16% and 18% respectively against the same period in 2021.

The availability of gas boilers has also improved. With their supply chains returning to normal levels, availability increased by over 20% in January 2023 compared with January 2022.

Wholesalers in the electro-technical sector report their number one operational challenge is still “product availability and price issues” with longer lead times experienced for solar products including inverters, batteries and mounting systems.

Currently, there are large stocks of most grades of timber in the UK.  The exceptions being birch plywood and Siberian larch cladding, which come from Russia.

John Newcomb, CEO of the Builders Merchants Federation, said: “Price inflation has largely stabilised with some suppliers deferring price increase as demand slows.

“Gas prices appear to be easing and many larger energy intensive manufacturers have likely hedged a high proportion of their energy costs for the year ahead.

“Nonetheless, the impact on manufacturers from high energy costs often takes months to feed through to product prices – especially for energy-intensive products and materials – so the volatility from late 2022 may still be felt into the spring.

“Inflationary pressures on other costs, especially labour, continue and may well impact prices later in the year.”