This week’s Comprehensive Spending Review gave us some depressing news for the bathroom industry. Although the Chancellor decided not to slash public sector capital spending by as much as had been feared, public sector investment in construction over the next four years will be more than £20bn less than in the last four years, and that will have significant consequences for us. Regarding housing, the budget is being cut by 60% and, needless to say, this is very deep. There will be a major impact on the bathroom industry – let’s hope that the Government’s decision to give social housing providers greater flexibility as to how they deliver their services really does work. The Chancellor remains very positive and hopes that the slack created by his cuts in public spending will be taken up by the private sector. He hopes that effects of the inevitable redundancies will be eased by improving private activity. There is a lot of hope around.
