Europe’s biggest brick factory has started production. Northampton-based Forterra has spent £95 million building the plant in the west Leicestershire countryside, which it said was the most efficient operation of its kind.
The Desford factory will be able to make 180 million bricks a year – enough to produce 25,000 new homes – and 120 million more bricks than the capacity of the old factory on the site which closed down at the end of March. On a company-wide scale the increase in capacity represents potential growth of around 22 per cent.
The official launch came as the business announced profits for the first four months of the year were down almost a quarter at £109 million, and a forecast that sales this year would be down 20 per cent on 2022.
