The Competition Commission is looking to crack open the cement market by forcing the biggest three makers of construction’s “glue” to sell off major production facilities.
In provisional findings released today, Commission probe chairman Martin Cave found that with so much of the UK market being concentrated in so few hands, cement prices had increased by £36 million a year.
Cave told the Evening Standard that this was almost certainly an underestimate, which means yet more financial pressure has been heaped on a construction industry that is “not flourishing”. Given so much cement is used in infrastructure, this would also have stretched the public purse.
Although Hanson UK, Cemex and LaFarge Tarmac were not accused of any wrongdoing, the Commission’s key suggestion is to force one or more of them to offload cement plants. The hope is that this will encourage new players into the market.
Any sales would hurt the three producers as each of them has only a handful of these huge facilities.
