Running out of bricks

The making of bricks in Britain has fallen to the point where the country has the equivalent of only about two months' of supply in stock, an industry leader has warned. The head of Michelmersh Brick Holdings said that a "difficult five years" meant that brick stock levels had fallen from 1.1bn bricks to 332m. Martin Warner, chief executive of the AIM-listed company, said that a lot of capacity had been taken out of the industry during the recession and now it was trying to cope with rapidly rising demand from housebuilders.