Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
Brick manufacturer Ibstock Brick hosted a visit from housing minister Kris Hopkins MP at its redeveloped Chesterton factory last week (28 November).
The Minister was given a tour of the production site, which has benefitted from more than £20m of investment. This has enabled it to respond well to the current rise in brick demand.
Following the release of figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government showing that the last three months have seen the fastest rate of housebuilding since 2008,
The redevelopment of the Chesterton site has secured 80 factory-related jobs and guarantees opportunities for the local community for the next 25 years.
The Minister said: “I am gobsmacked at the scale of production. I think the community of Staffordshire can be proud they have got such a high-tech facility on their doorstep. It’s been great to see Ibstock’s state-of-the-art factory and meet with workers who are ramping up production and, for the first time in years, keeping the factory running over the Christmas period to help get Britain building again.”
Colin Richardson, director of manufacturing development at Ibstock Brick, said: “It was a privilege to welcome the Housing Minister to our site. We’re really proud of our factory in Chesterton so it was a good opportunity to showcase what has been achieved with our investment in Ibstock’s future. It is the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly factory of its type in the world today and has the capacity to produce 80 million bricks per year, so we’re well placed to respond to the return to growth of the construction industry.”
Ibstock’s investment in Chesterton and re-commissioning of one of its Leicester factories earlier in 2013 means it has capacity to bring an additional 120m bricks per year to the market from this year.
