In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, VEKA has just announced that it now has to take a review of their business. This is their statement published on their website:

In March this year, Burnley based uPVC window system company VEKA made the difficult decision to temporarily close operations in the UK and place most of its staff on Furlough due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Having reopened on 11th May 2020, albeit in a controlled and scaled manner to fulfil a returning demand from customers, it has become clear in the recent weeks that the business is not going to bounce-back to pre Covid-19 levels and as such action must be taken to rescale the business in light of significantly reduced sales.

Managing Director of VEKA plc, Dave Jones said; ‘VEKA plc has taken a number of actions over the past months to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 from arranging financial support to putting all non-essential spend on indefinite hold. However, upon our return on the 11th May and speaking with our customer base over recent weeks, we have identified some significant customer losses – one of whom went into administration just last week which will have a substantial impact on our business.”

VEKA plc started the process yesterday, Monday 15th June, initially looking to establish an employee elected committee responsible for taking group redundancy consultations and from there VEKA plc will follow the process as set out by relevant employment law rules & regulations.

“Having taken all available options to us to ensure our business remains sustainable, we are now forced to take more prudent approach to all company expenditure and to review the resource requirements in light of this predicted drop in sales. That said, at this stage we cannot confirm exact numbers of potential redundancies, however we will continue to monitor situation on a daily basis throughout the process.

This is not the year we, the board of directors, had planned for VEKA plc in 2020 and we are disappointed that COVID-19 has had such an impact on our economy, industry and business despite the strong support packages from the government and saddened that this will ultimately result in losing valued employees” continued Dave Jones, Managing Director of VEKA plc.

This is sad news and comes off the back of the announcement that Travis Perkins is to shed 2500 jobs as it closes 165 branches. What we are perhaps now beginning to see is the depth of the economic damage that has been done because of the virus and the lockdown required to keep it under control. Perhaps its also a sign that despite reports of companies in our industry being busy right now, it’s still not enough to sustain certain business levels.

It also mentions in the article that a VEKA customer has gone into administration, something which I was given notice of at the end of last week. I am awaiting documentation from either The Gazette or Companies House.

I want to wish VEKA and it’s staff well. These are very difficult times for all involved and I hope all those that unfortunately lose their job find new employment as quickly as possible. We’re a creative bunch, and all being well we’ll soon be on the recovery path.

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