In the past 20 years the amount of stone from overseas being used in the UK has increased by 635%. Since the low point after the crash of 2008/09 it has recovered by 215%. No wonder European stone companies want to be here.
Stone has certainly regained the prominance it had for millennia as the material of choice in so many construction applications, whether strength and permanence are paramount or it is aesthetics that rule – and especially where they go hand in hand.
Because here’s the thing about stone: it is seldom chosen for its practical properties alone. It’s aesthetics are nearly always part of its attraction. If they weren’t, a lot less of it would be used because it is not always the easiest and seldom the cheapest of materials to incorporate into a project. But it is often the best and, when lifetime and environmental costs are included, can be the most cost effective.
It is because of its aesthetic element that if someone wants Jura, or Moca Creme, or Anstrude, or Carrara Marble or any of the myriad other stones available from Europe, that is what they want, not a substitute for it, even if there are less expensive stones (let alone other products) available.
Certainly lower price stone from the Far East has taken a big share of the market as well as contributing to the significant growth of the use of stone in the UK (as in the rest of the world) since around the turn of the millennium. Since HM Revenue & Customs started its current system of data collection in 1996, the amount of stone being brought into the UK from overseas (Europe and the rest of the world) has, according to the latest figures from 2015, increased by 635%.
That is in spite of the toll taken on the market by the economic crash of 2008/09. Since the low point of the albeit severe recession, the amount of stone coming into the UK had increased by 215% in 2015 – no wonder it has become a market stone producers worldwide want to reach.
In value terms (£ at current prices), the increase since 1996 is a more modest but still impressive 377%. That is lower than the quantity growth because more stone came from the Far East to be processed in the UK rather than being bought as higher value masonry from Europe.
And these growth rates are from 2015, when there was a slight fall in the market for stone in the UK compared with 2014. That fall was a trend throughout the world, according to Italy’s Marble & Stones in the World report published during the Marmomacc exhibition in Verona last year.
The fall in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote in June last year is expected to show up as a big jump in the value of the stone market in the UK after June 2016.
So yes, China, India and, increasingly, other countries in the Far East are taking a bigger share of the stone market in the UK, just as they are across the world. But they have not taken it all. There are still architects and designers who want the aesthetic of European stone. And that has enabled European producers (and we include both those within the Eurozone and those outside of it) to continue to compete.
One of the main locations in which many of them want to compete is London, from where the city’s international architectural and design community work on projects in the UK and across the globe, including wealthy and high spending Arab states.
It is why many European stone companies now have their own operations selling directly into the UK – a move which is understandably unwelcomed by stone wholesalers.
Lately, Italian stone specialist Salvatori has opened a showroom in London. It is in a listed building on the corner of Wigmore Street and Wimpole Street in the West End. It joins other outlets the company has opened in Milan, Zurich and Sydney.
Cosentino, one of the biggest Spanish stone companies famous for its Silestone quartz, Dekton ultracompact surfaces and Sensa factory-treated natural granite range, opened a design centre in London last year in Old Street, Clerkenwell, an area that has become a hub for world-class brands wanting the attention of the design community that works there.
The new Cosentino City, as the company’s design hubs are known, came after the opening of others in Milan, New York, Sydney and Singapore. Cosentino also has five trade distribution depots in the UK.
After the brutal concrete dominance of modernism it is not surprising to see a return to stone and the worldwide growth of the industry that supplies and processes it as the fabric of buildings, as interior decoration, and for landscaping. Stone has been used by man since he first started creating his own environments. From the grandest of statements like the Palace of Versailles or Canterbury Cathedral to the modest village cottages of the Cotswolds or the Pyrenees, stone is the defining factor.
And ever since the Normans stamped their mark on the British landscape with cathedrals and castles that left no doubt about their intention to remain in the British Isles, stone has been making its way from mainland Europe to Britain, which it continues to do.
Half the stone that arrives in the UK from mainland Europe comes from Spain (40% by value). It includes a lot of roofing slate – Spain being the world’s largest producer of it – and granite setts, which many Spanish granite quarries produce as a way of turning waste into a sellable product.
Some of the largest stone companies in Europe are in Spain. Companies such as Cosentino, already mentioned, and Levantina, a multinational company employing more than 1,600 people worldwide. Among the quarries it owns is what it claims to be the largest Crema Marfil quarry in the world at El Coto in the province of Alicante. The company has nine strategically located modern factories processing its stones. And the stones are distributed by leading wholesalers all over the world as well as through 25 Levantina-owned distribution centres, including two in the UK at Rotherham and Basingstoke.
The second largest European supplier of stone to the UK is Italy, which will come as no surprise as it is still a major stone trading country. It is followed by Portugal, France and Ireland, although Ireland is also a processor for the UK and some of what comes in is the re-export of British stones that have been sent there to be worked.
Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands sell smaller amounts of stone to the UK each year and most of the countries across Europe supply stone to Britain from time to time. Some companies, such as B-Stone, Beltrami and Brachot-Hermant, all from Belgium, have established depots in the UK to supply stone from around the world.
An easy way to see a wide selection of the stones available to the UK market from Europe (and, indeed, from the rest of the world, including the UK’s own producers) without clocking up thousands of miles is to visit the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL in London between 25 and 27 April. The show has had to be expanded to accommodate everyone who wants to exhibit. With the UK economy still looking strong, companies have presumably decided not to wait around to see what the result of the protracted negotiations between the UK and Europe’s governments will yield and to start some negotiations of their own.
The Stone Show has themed days, which is reflected in a conference at ExCeL held in conjunction with the exhibition. The first day, 25 April, is Architect & Designer Day. The conference on that day is called ‘European Innovation Meets Stone Design’.
It is a one-day RIBA-assessed workshop from CPD providers network members Veronafiere, hosted by international stone consultant Vincent Marazita, who is a pleasure to listen to, amusing and has a wealth of knowledge about the stone industry.
There is an amazing line-up of presentations from highly respected speakers and the day includes a lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments. And it is free for architects and designers who sign up for it (which you can do at bit.ly/archi-day) by Friday 7 April.
Somehow or another there will even be time for a guided tour of the Show to get hands-on experience of the stones being exhibited from all over the world, including those from consortiums such as MB Stone International, representing French quarry operators, and Bagia Stone, representing Spanish operators.
That is in addition to those companies exhibiting on their own stands. They include companies such as French marble and granite quarrier Carriers Plo, which, with its Silverstar granite from the largest quarry in the region of Tarn, producing 20,000m3 of stone a year, accounts for half of Tarn’s total granite output and a quarter of all French production, 45% of which is exported across Europe.
Then there is Farpedra from Portugal, producing another 20,000m3 a year, this time of limestone. There are many more European stone producers exhibiting at the Natural Stone Show in London and you can start to plan your visit to ExCeL by exploring the full list on the exhibition website at www.stoneshow.co.uk.