Why paint could be next victim of UK’s supply crisis

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Leyland SDM, a decorating and DIY supplies business with 32 stores across the UK, has recently hung posters in its shop windows reading: “Paint shortage soon, Panic buy here!” Ordinarily, customers might have grinned and dismissed the slogan as a droll topical joke but in post-Brexit, pandemic-recovery Britain 2021, with barren supermarket shelves and queues around the block for petrol forecourts apparently now an everyday sight, are we absolutely sure this is definitely a gag? “We’ve got a warehouse in Wembley, we’ve got a much smaller warehouse in Acton and another in Cricklewood in north London and we basically filled them up with as many pallets of paint as you could possibly get.” That foresight has continued to pay off throughout the year, with the company’s bold initial outlay enabling it to keep its shelves lined with fresh paint tins, an all-important line that accounts for roughly half of Leyland’s business and which boomed during lockdown when bored homeowners turned to redecorating for entertainment and then again this year when shops and hotels moved to smarten up their premises before reopening. Fears of a “great British DIY shortage” were last raised in late May when builders’ merchant Travis Perkins warned The Times that the price of bagged cement was about to rise by 15 per cent, chipboard by 10 per cent and paint by five per cent in response to high demand for raw materials from both home decorators and professionals, compounded by the supply chain issues that have since significantly worsened. “This is a major contributor to delayed deliveries in all construction product areas; one manufacturer reported ‘factories piled with product that we cannot get out’.” open image in gallery The construction sector is suffering from material shortages and price spikes John Newcomb, chief executive of the Builders Merchants Federation, adds: “Builders merchants have done a fantastic job managing product demand and supply, but haulage remains the biggest issue we face at the moment and it is our top priority.” Their assessment of the situation is echoed by Nigel Ogilvie, chief executive of the Painting and Decorating Association, who told P&D News: “During the main lockdown all of our members reported that things were going quite well, although whites, magnolias and emulsions were a bit of a problem and there were some real shortages in the northeast, down on the south coast and in the London area.