10 minute read
Cold Calling
DANNY WILLIAMS ‘COLD CALLING’
Each month our special correspondent Danny Williams* replies to a reader’s letter...
KP Northants
We have now enjoyed a long enough period of good sales for it to have become the norm for many KP. By this I mean that fabricators have had the confidence to invest in new machinery where you can get it and certainly, in my case, decent used kit and especially automated, which has reduced the dependency on skilled labour as well as enabling higher volumes.
Installers in the meantime, are buying new vans when they can get hold of them, opening new offices and expanding like crazy. And generally, the supply side has got its collective backsides into gear at long last, with the glaring exception of one or two aluminium syscos, who still remain remarkably confused by the combination of the words ‘customer’ and ‘service’.
In response to your question KP I have polished off the crystal sphere, peered into the tea leaves and cast the rune stones in preparation for my response, which of course remains a guess, albeit an educated one. Any sort of forecasting both currently and for the past 18 months is at the mercy of Covid, which has side-lined even Brexit and climate change as the dominant influencer of our collective fortunes. Just as we are learning how to deal with life under its influence, Covid takes a new turn, or at least provides our illustrious and comb-shy leader with an opportunity to put us on a further war footing to deflect some of the brown-stuff he has drawn upon himself. Again. But such is the human instinct for survival and prosperity that we all just keep on consuming and spending. And more than ever thankfully, on our beloved castles. Surely the bubble must burst…
Actually…I do not think that it will. Rather, I believe that it will deflate somewhat, with trade returning to what might once have been regarded as a fairly satisfactory ‘normal’. Nonetheless, for so long has business been bursting that inevitably it will feel like a fall when it comes, probably from the spring of 2022. Although widely forecast for 2021 with the consequent surge in the share prices of airlines and leisure stocks, I have more confidence that with a substantially vaccinated population and ability to work around the bug, foreign holidays will take increasing chunks of what has been ‘our’ money for a year and a half, as will new motor cars as they become more widely available once again. Against this, working at home will continue to be the norm now that so many have had a taste and, even if offices are repopulated, it will never return to pre-covid. Thus, armed with that confidence and increasing formal acceptance of a home working hybrid by bosses, homeowners will continue to prepare their homes for rest, play and work. The tea leaves tell me that we will return to sales of around pre-pandemic levels KP, which were OK for me and mine, if not exactly eyewatering. What worries me about this however, is the question of whether so many firms out there will be too highly geared for the false highs created by pandemic, to ever come back down. Recovery loans will need to be repaid, as will finance for machinery, premises, vehicles and other investments made on the back of the sales surge, which has been sustained long enough for many to believe this is forever. We will, I believe, see a significant number of failures, dependent of course upon the level of decline in sales. I and many others have treated the sales boom as a surge that would inevitably come to an end; but for many, it has become the way of the world. I also expect materials and components availability to stabilise, and prices perhaps even to fall though I won’t hold my breath on that one. As we enter 2022 and throughout much of last year, price rises have taken place sometimes two or three weeks apart for the same product, wiping profits from jobs just priced. For commercial contracts especially, we have something of a ticking bomb in the background. Many smaller firms built upon seat-of-the-pants entrepreneurialism, will have struggled to keep on top of the complexities of maintaining profitability against continuous prices rises. These will be amongst the most vulnerable, discovering all too late that, despite a bumper year of orders they haven’t made any money. Or are in loss. Of course, I hope that I am wrong on this. And finally…. We are an industry that provides exceptional products for home improvers, every one of which is manufactured from scratch, with every detail potentially chosen by the customer and produced exactly to their specification. Those windows and doors and conservatories are then installed usually within a few short days, whatever the weather and conditions, with the vast majority of them absolutely perfect and with thousands of happy customers every week. Most even upmarket kitchens and bathrooms are produced using standard components that are adapted for each installation, not produced from scratch in the way that windows and doors are. And actually, compared to other home improvements we do it for very little money too. Ten grand will transform most average houses, both inside and out and with a profound impact on the security, comfort and energy bills of those properties. I think we do a bloody amazing job in this industry and, despite my concerns that some of us might find it tough later in the year, when I reflect how we have dealt with the unpredictable lows and highs of the past 20 months or so (well most of us anyway), I think we can be all be proud. On that note KP, may I wish you and the rest of our colleagues in this great industry of ours, a very prosperous, successful, fulfilling and Covid-reduced 2022. Now go for it!
CONTRACTOR APPOINTED TO DELIVER £54MILLION GLASS FUTURES DEVELOPMENT
Network Space Developments (NSD) has appointed Bowmer + Kirkland to build the £54million Global Centre of Excellence at Saints Retail Park in St Helens.
The site, previously the former United Glassworks which closed in the late 1990’s, was later developed in part by NSD for a new stadium for St Helens Rugby League which opened in 2011. Remediation and preparatory works will shortly complete and in January 2022, Bowmer + Kirkland will start construction of the transformational global glass research and innovation facility. The 165,000 sq ft scheme is expected to complete in January 2023, ready for fit-out. The facility has been pre let to St Helens Borough Council on a 15 year head lease and will be sub let to Glass Futures which will occupy and manage the building to deliver industry and government backed research and development projects focused on decarbonising glass production. It will also provide a platform for the industry to access an experimental scale furnace to test and run trials for implementation at commercial scale on a state-of-the-art line, both collaboratively and individually. Delivery of the project was conceived and is being managed by landowner and developer NSD, on behalf of a partnership including not-for-profit research organisation Glass Futures , St Helens Borough Council, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and UKRI (UK Research & Innovation). This dynamic and fast-moving partnership has rapidly turned the Glass Futures concept into a deliverable and contracted scheme in less than two years. NSD will continue to manage the delivery of the project through to practical completion. The building has been presold by NSD to global investor Standard Life Investments Property Income Trust, part of abrdn, to secure forward funding and conclude a viable delivery strategy. Property Agents B8 acted for Network Space with CBRE acting on behalf of abrdn.
Catherine Chilvers, Development Director at Network Space, said: “Bowmer + Kirkland starting on site within just two years of the Glass Futures scheme being first conceived is testament to our own commitment to the project and that of an exceptional partnership formed between ourselves, Glass Futures, St Helens Borough Council, the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and UKRI. Everyone has worked incredibly hard to get to this point and we are grateful to all for their significant efforts. It will be truly fantastic to see a redundant former glass works site being transformed into a global R&D hub, once again securing St Helens position at the forefront of glass innovation and the transition to zero carbon glass production.” Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool City Region, said: “This is a massively important project, not only for our region but for the future of the planet. St Helens has always been a global leader in the glass industry with a proud industrial past. Glass Futures will help it maintain that prominence and give the town a significant role in the Green Industrial Revolution too.
“It’s fantastic to see that we’ll soon see spades in the ground and the site up and running soon after. The work being done to decarbonise the glass production process is of international significance and should have really important lessons for helping other industries to cut their carbon emissions. I want our region to be at the forefront of the race to save our planet. The Green Industrial Revolution will bring a lot of jobs, investment and opportunities; I want us to attract as much as possible to the Liverpool City Region. Projects like Glass Futures will help give us the track record to keep attracting other exciting new businesses.”
Councillor Richard McCauley, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Planning at St Helens Borough Council, said: “St Helens is steeped in glass manufacturing, and we want to keep it that way at the heart of global innovation – having Glass Futures here will put us at the centre of sustainable glass making for decades to come in support of our climate emergency action plan and the reuse of brownfield sites. “These are incredibly exciting times for the whole borough, with Glass Futures being the first of many ambitious schemes that will be coming out of the ground in St Helens over the coming months.” Glass Futures has already created 24 FTE skilled jobs and expects to create and accommodate another 50 between now and when the facility is fully operational in 2023. Glass Futures and its partners will create opportunity for apprenticeships, training and upskilling across the glass and other foundation industry sectors. It is also set to attract further inward investment to the region as leading international glass companies focus resources to be within geographical reach of the facility.
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