Concrete plant site sold months before closure
£14M DEAL SAYS IT CAN’T BE USED AGAIN FOR MAKING BUILDING PRODUCTS
A MAJOR South Derbyshire employer has sold its Swadlincote site for £14.2 million.
Building materials manufacturer Forterra said in the summer it was putting 90 jobs at risk by closing its Bison concrete factory.
Two facilities were on the site – a hollowcore precast concrete flooring manufacturing hub, which was mothballed in 2020, and a bespoke precast concrete facility.
It is believed a condition of the sale means the Swadlincote site will not be used for the manufacture of building products in the future.
A spokesman for the firm said: “Forterra will continue to lease part of the site for a nominal amount until the end of the year as remaining operations are wound up and manufacture of our bespoke precast products is consolidated at our Somercotes facility [near Alfreton in Derbyshire].
“It is a condition of the sale that the Swadlincote site will not be used for the manufacture of building products.”
A year-and-a-half ago Forterra was forced to temporarliy shut its plants and put all its short-term plans on hold as a national lockdown was imposed.
Forterra told investors it had enough cash to see it through the enforced downturn as building companies closed their sites. Redundancies were also announced.
A month ago it announced that business had picked up strongly and it looked set to stay that way. Forterra – which is building Europe’s biggest brick factory in Desford, Leicestershire – has around a third of the UK brick market and a third of the aerated concrete block market, making it the second biggest brick maker in Britain behind the Ibstock group.
In the first half of 2021, Forterra reported sales of just over £180 million – down on the £193.6 million reported prepandemic in the first half of 2019, but almost 50 per cent up on the first six months of 2020.
Pre-tax profits were £27.1 million for the half, compared to losses of £2.3 million in the first half of 2020, but down more than £5 million on the first half of 2019.
The business said it had seen a strong recovery in trading and the latest profits were a sign of success, taking into account “operational challenges” and investment in the new Desford factory, which is set to open in late 2022.
It said: “The board remains positive about the fundamentals relating to the UK housing market driven by structural undersupply and supportive Government policy.”
Forterra is investing £27 million in its brick factory in Wilnecote, near Tamworth, to produce a wider range of high-end bricks for commercial and specification markets.
The investment will up production capacity by 20 per cent or six million bricks a year, including greater numbers of the famous Staffordshire blue bricks.
Forterra bought Bison for £20 million in 2017 to enable its expansion as a precast concrete manufacturer.
Forterra will continue to lease part of the site until the end of the year as remaining operations are would up. Spokesman