Jade Greenhow, Insight Data’s General Manager recently wrote an open letter to the industry’s editors on the return of UK housebuilding, and the opportunities it presents to pro-active businesses in the glazing industry.
Whilst it’s long been said that the UK housebuilding industry is on its knees, we are once again beginning to see an increase of new houses being built. Yes, it may not yet be enough to meet the incredible demand for houses, but new developments are appearing all over the UK. In fact, in 2017 UK construction companies experienced their best year in a decade as builders registered plans to start over 160,000 new homes – an increase of 6% on the year before.
It appears that positive effect has continued in the first half of 2018, thanks in-part to the beginning of the Government’s five-year plan to inject £44 billion into housebuilding to meet their budget pledge of building 300,000 new homes every year by the mid-2020s. What does this all mean? It means there’s once again sizeable demand for building products from the housebuilding industry and for supply and installation partners who can service these new developments.
In the past few months alone, we’ve reported on a number of new developments. Firstly, there was the projects named in the Government’s statement which included 200 homes in Devon and 300 homes in Lancashire – two of many council-owned sites now available through £45M of funding into local infrastructure. Next was the former Transport for London tunnelling site in East London, providing 1,500 homes in the capital with 40% earmarked as affordable. And finally, we broke the story of the Top Gear test track in Surrey being converted into a mini-town of 1,800 homes.
Not only is this great progress, this is a great opportunity for businesses within the fenestration industry – if they are proactive and effectively market themselves along with their products and services. Without question, now is the time to be investing in marketing and communicating with housebuilders, main contractors and even architects if businesses want to be involved in these lucrative, high-profile developments.
As one of the largest providers of prospect data and market intelligence for the glazing and construction industries, we work closely with fabricators, installers and product manufacturers developing high-impact email marketing and direct mail campaigns targeted to these sectors. Whether a business is looking to target main contractors, housebuilders or local builders in their area or nationwide, or even communicate with architects earlier in the specification process, we are able to provide the contact details and business information to do so.
For more information visit www.insightdata.co.uk
