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Results filed by Lee Marley Brickwork Limited for 2024 show increase in both turnover and profit despite the business taking a bashing from project delays caused by the  new second staircase rule for high-rise buildings.

Lee Marley Brickwork was established in 1997 and is one of the UK’s largest integrated masonry and scaffold companies.

In 2024 it turned over £87.2m (2023: £79.8m) and made a pre-tax profit of £3.57m (2023: £2.85m) – a fifth successive year of growth for the company.

But it could have been even better, as founder and chief executive Lee Marley explained in the annual report.

“2024 marked a year of transition and retrenchment,” he said. “The government’s announcement in July 2023 that the two-staircase requirement for new residential buildings would be implemented at a threshold of 18 metres, not 30 metres, caused and unprecedented shift in secured revenue as our clients halted project starts to assess the impact of the measures on their production pipeline.

“While the government’s announcement on 24^th October that the transitional period would be extended was welcome, the size and scale of the projects that the company works on meant that re-mobilisation takes considerable time. As a result, a significant number of new projects were delayed by six to nine months, deferring some £30m of work into H2 2024 and 2025.

“The slowdown in work allowed the company to give pause to its future strategy and to align its cost base accordingly. As a result, the company stripped away a senior management cadre, invested heavily into its commercial and training functions and devolved greater responsibility down our management chains. The results have been positive with administrative expenses, excluding depreciation, decreasing 7% in relative terms and project returned increasing 5% in real terms from H1 to H2 2024.”

The highest paid director, presumably Lee Marley himself, had a pay cut last year amid the senior management redundancy round, with aggregate remuneration of £160,000, compared to £192,000 in 2023.

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