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Tue March 19 2024

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Nori brick production restarts at Huncoat

9 Jan 15 Hanson Building Products has re-opened its Nori brickworks in Accrington after seven years in mothballs.

Production resumed this week at Hanson’s Huncoat brickworks near Accrington following an upturn in demand from house-builders and a £1.6m investment in the plant.

Hanson closed the site in 2008 when the construction industry’s crippling decline began.

The re-start is in two stages, with phase one starting this week and phase two, which will require further investment of around £350,000, following later in 2015.

Hanson Building Products managing director Stephen Harrison said: “We are anticipating further growth in new housing starts in the short to medium term and are confident that this factory has a prominent part to play in the economic recovery.”

Bricks have been manufactured at the Huncoat site since 1887. They are made from fire clay and are so strong and durable that they become known in the trade as iron bricks. At one time the works chimney had the letters IRON painted vertically on it with the N at the top, prompting locals to call it the Nori brick factory.

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Red Nori bricks were used in the foundations of the Blackpool Tower and the Empire State Building in New York as well as in thousands of houses, factories and schools throughout northern England.

The brickworks was treated to a visit by prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne yesterday who are on a two-day tour of the northwest – the first of a series of regional tours that the two men plan to undertake to rally support.

“The closure of the brickworks was a painful symbol of how our economy has suffered in recent years, and its re-opening is the strongest evidence possible that Britain and the north-west are coming back, and are once again on course to prosperity,” Mr Osborne said.

As previously reported, Hanson Building Products is being sold by its German parent company HeidelbergCement to a US private equity firm for £900m. The sale is expected to complete by the end of March.

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