News

Following from our previous update last month we are pleased to confirm we are nearly there. Many of you will have been able to see the rapid progress since we were given the go ahead by the insurance loss adjuster. The walls of the damaged building have now been carefully rebuilt and the roof structure is in place. Currently the roofers are preparing to place the roof slates and ridge tiles which will complete the rebuild. The brick layers have already started to rebuild the perimeter wall in preparation for the removal of the scaffolding which remains in the way while the roofers complete their tasks. In discussion with the contractor, we are confident we will be able to ask for the traffic restrictions to be removed by the end of the month.

While this will be a relief for many the repairs will continue within our walls. Everything we will have completed up to this point is expressly to alleviate the traffic restrictions outside our premises, but we will still be making repairs within our walls to put right the extensive damaged caused by this incident. I would personally like to thank all the locals and customers who have continued to brave the traffic to support us during this time as this has enabled us to stay afloat despite the significant drop in footfall with the restricted access. It will however be months before we are back to strength as we attempt to undo the damage to our valued service and reputation. We must again repeat that as a Builders Merchant we could have progressed the response to the incident quicker but were prevented from doing so by the insurance companies and the complex nature of high value insurance claims now well over £300k. To reduce our recovery time, we hope to work with the loss adjuster to be able to offer some form of incentive to our customers and locals to return to our business and by way of a thank you for supporting us through this very difficult time. We will provide details of this once we have them.