BPCF attacks aggregates tax

"THE British Precast Concrete Federation (BPCF) is lobbying the Government to reverse its decision to impose a tax on the sale of aggregates. The Federation says the tax will increase costs for UK producers of precast concrete by some œ40 million (representing 25% of industry profits) and will hit business investment and jobs.

The UK's precast concrete industry has annual sales of around œ1.6 billion and employs 20,000 people (with a further 20,000 indirectly employed) at over 800 factories across the country.

David Blount, current president of the BPCF, said: 'The introduction of the aggregates tax is considered a major threat to the UK precast concrete sector - a œ40 million tax increase will have a big impact upon our industry.

'The Government has naively assumed that consumers will blindly pay up without any effect upon demand - we disagree.'

The BPCF says the aggregates tax will create unnecessary market distortions with increased use of tax-exempt materials - clay, slate, natural stone, silica sand etc - in the production of products which can be used as direct substitutes for precast concrete.

Furthermore, the regions which have the highest concentrations of precast concrete factories - the South-West, East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, and Northern Ireland - also have high concentrations of quarry-related activities and will therefore receive a double blow from the aggregates tax.

'The simple fact is that these issues have not been considered by the Government, and we are urgently seeking to rectify this,' said Mr Blount."