Blogs

Figures released today show that 'winter deaths' in the year 2014-2015 were the highest since 1999. 43,000 'extra' winter deaths is the chilling (sorry) headline.

Excuse my French but, oh bloody hell.

The Budget is due next week and no doubt continued austerity will still be the name of the game. It has already been a tough few years for the building industry and we would, along with the rest of the country, welcome some more positive news.

The British weather (why is it that other countries have 'climate' but we have 'weather'?) continues to baffle. In the last few weeks we have gone from 'scorchio', through sleet and hail, to the wettest drought on record. It must be causing headaches for most builders and it is certainly not helping the builders' merchant…

Despite spring having officially sprung, summer seems a long way off and there is still time to consider what should be in stock when (hopefully, not 'if') it finally happens.

June 2012: the industry is still bumping along the bottom, but everybody feels it's high time we got together, merchants and suppliers, and talked with one another about what the recovery's looking like and what happens next. June 2012 is your long-awaited date, ladies and gentlemen, for the next Merchant Industry National Conference.

So, why am I writing about flooding? And not for the reason you would think, linking the current situation to climate change.

June's flash flooding in London, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Scotland, and cities across Northern Europe from Paris to Prague came as a shock. In the South of England polling stations were flooded, disrupting voting in the EU referendum.

The good ole English weather is surpassing itself this year and with the building and construction industry finally on the up, it is typical that something like this comes along to do its best to dampen our optimism.

So the bloodbath continues. Last Saturday's Guardian business pages featured a very interesting little series of graphs, showing just how far major shares had fallen in the past few months. They included some of our old favourites: Persimmon, Barratt, Kier, Taylor Wimpey and, of course, Wolseley. For all of these companies have seen upwards of…