Around 500 million unsold bricks are stacked in yards and depots across the country, enough to build 50,000 homes, the GMB union said today, as brick maker Wienerberger prepares to close a West Midlands plant.
The union said the stockpile, which it calculated was enough to build two Kidderminsters, was sitting at depots around the country.
Wienerberger, which GMB describes as the UK’s largest brick maker, has announced plans to close its Hartlebury site.
Workers from the industry are addressing the Trades Union Congress in Brighton today, the union said, warning that more jobs will be put at risk unless the government delivers on its housebuilding promises. The 158th Congress runs at the Brighton Centre from 13 to 16 September.
Housebuilding target
The government promised two years ago to deliver 1.5 million new homes by the end of the decade. GMB said current projections showed the target was likely to be missed by hundreds of thousands.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said in December that the housing secretary, Steve Reed, had pledged to go further than ever before to reach the target, alongside what it described as the most comprehensive overhaul of planning rules in more than a decade.
The union’s warning follows a run of weak numbers across the sector. UK construction activity fell in July 2025 to its lowest level since the first Covid lockdown, with the purchasing managers’ index at 44.3 and housebuilding the weakest-performing category.
Research published in 2025 by City & Guilds found 76 per cent of construction businesses were struggling to recruit, a skills shortage the report said threatened the 1.5 million homes target. The Construction Industry Training Board has estimated the industry needs to recruit a further 239,300 workers by 2029.
In London, 6,325 homes were completed against an assessed annual need of 88,000, leaving the capital at 7 per cent of its housing requirement in the most recent year of data. Private-sector housing starts in the capital have fallen by 84 per cent since 2015, according to the same analysis.
Brickworkers address Congress
Lewis Parmenter, a brickworker and GMB member, told TUC Congress: “Right now, there are 500 million bricks sat unused in factory yards across this country. You heard it right, 500 million bricks just sitting there. That is enough to build 50,000 average-sized houses, or ten small towns. Enough to provide homes for hundreds of thousands of people.”
He said: “But without spades in the ground to build the homes we need, our industry will collapse and eight thousand jobs will go: including mine.”
Parmenter told delegates: “An industrial strategy for housing is not complicated. If we don’t build the homes, then the bricks don’t get sold. They just sit there in the yards. And we can’t make more bricks if the current stocks aren’t being bought.”
He said the factory he works in had had six shutdowns in three years, with another factory mothballed.
“Other brickmakers Ibstock and Forterra are already making redundancies, and we’re really worried we could be next in line,” he said.
“And what happens when the jobs go? Our towns go with them.”
Jamie Young
Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the 'covid era' and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine's coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk
