‘Time to get Britain building responsibly’, says Aggregate Industries

A change of government has prompted all manner of press releases from the building industry this week. 

Both the Mineral Products Association, the trade body representing Aggregate Industries et al., and Aggregate Industries itself have responded to plans set out by the new Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to overhaul the planning system and boost housebuilding. 

MPA Director of Public Affairs, Robert McIlveen, said: 

The Chancellor has wasted no time to get going, and we warmly welcome her decisions on housing and onshore wind, as well as hiring more planners. We look forward to such decisive action in other areas… 

We will be writing to key ministers in the coming days, stressing that planning reform for housing is just the first step, and that a similar approach of unblocking the planning system needs to be taken for mineral extraction, processing and freight. This is fundamental to growth, given the sector represents the largest material flow in the UK economy – over 1 million tonnes of raw materials and products every day. Mineral products make up a major part of the supply chain for housing and infrastructure, but our members face prohibitive constraints in the current planning and permitting system.

Lee Sleight, who this year became Aggregate Industries' latest Managing Director of Aggregate, said: 

As a leading sustainable building materials supplier within the UK, we are fully on board with this initiative and ready to support key areas such as house building, infrastructure and onshore wind. 

So far in 2024, the UK market has seen a concerning slowdown in both infrastructure projects and house building, with 24% less construction starts in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the previous year, and construction output in the housing sector 19% below 2019 levels in February this year. 

etc etc 

Without a doubt, the urgent steps which the Chancellor has laid out to kick-start economic growth are necessary and achievable, and we are poised ready for the challenge. However, taking house building as an example, the 1.5 million homes projected over the next five years will require vast amounts of materials.

A conservative estimate of just the concrete required for these homes could be 37.5 million cubic metres. For perspective, this equates to more than nine times the capacity of Wembley Stadium and underscores the importance of recycled materials. 

This is why it’s crucial we create a new blueprint for the Great British built environment. Aggregate Industries have ambitious plans to help achieve net zero and are adopting a circular economy approach across everything they do. 

The construction industry must responsibly embrace the Chancellor’s national mission for growth but can only achieve this by building in a circular and wholly sustainable way. This goes far beyond just minimizing waste. Effectively, we need to build new cities from the ‘urban quarry’ of our old stock, thereby conserving the precious resources of our island nation.

And, of course, no one would disagree with Mr Sleight’s apparent passion for the use of recycled materials and conserving the precious resources of our island nation – but this is the MD of the division of Aggregate Industries that has been fighting tooth and nail over the last 15 years to dig the life out of a relatively insignificant greenfield site in East Devon for precious unsustainable primary un-recycled materials, and to process them 23 miles away – a wholly unsustainable way. 

Aggregate Industries: Say one thing and do another.