The Construction Products Association is reporting increasing levels of investment from product manufacturers for the first time in five years.

In the Association’s State of Trade Survey reports strong sales of construction materials in Quarter 2, something we’ve seen ourselves.

Of the companies that responded to the trade body’s survey 100% reported increasing sales and 83% of them going on to report they anticipate the recovery will last for at least another 12 months during which time they’ll continue to invest in output.

This is a marked increase on year on year analysis with both the heavy and light side firms reporting capital investment increases across all areas of their businesses.

Construction Products Association senior economist Kallum Pickering said: “These results confirm that the construction products industry is firmly on the path of recovery.

Discussing our own investment, OBAS CEO Norman Tenray said: “We’ve invested heavily in OBAS and we’re already seeing the benefits. We’ve redeveloped our online offering, developed a new clothing design and personalisation facility, and increased our warehouse capacity by 50% whilst implementing dynamic pick and pack technologies.

“Furthermore, we’ve created a Trade Counter which means, for the first time, local tradespeople will be able to benefit from the tens of thousands of products available from our Longridge Headquarters. I expect these developments to be of huge benefits to the business and our customers for years to come.”