Knauf Insulation to close St Helens for three months

Insulation manufacturers Knauf Insulation have announced a short-term closure of their St Helens factory due to lower than expected sales.

The factory will close for three months and re-open in the first quarter of 2009.

The company says that the a significant reduction in new housing starts due mainly to the ‘credit crunch’, has been coupled with much slower sales than expected from the Government’s energy efficiency scheme – the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target.

The slowdown in the market has resulted in significantly lower than expected sales and has consequently led to an unsustainable rise in inventories.