Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the MP who is better known as The Speaker of the House of Commons, has visited non-flammable hard surfaces façade manufacturer Shackerley, based in Euxton, a village in the MP’s Chorley constituency in Lancashire.

Shackerley supplies its façade systems to projects across the UK and beyond, and has been a major employer and a thriving business in Euxton for more than 50 years.

Since the Grenfell Tower fire in London in 2017 it has seen significant growth in demand for its non-combustible stone, ceramic and brick rainscreen cladding systems, made at its ISO 9001-accredited factories in Lancashire.

That growth has led to the substantial investment in an additional factory, doubling the company’s manufacturing capacity. With the new factory has come new machinery, new technology and additional storage facilities.

The expansion has led to job security for Shackerley’s existing team and the creation of new jobs along with a boost for the company’s supply chain.

Sir Lindsay’s visit enabled the MP to tour one of Shackerley’s Lancashire factories, witnessing the company’s quality assured manufacturing processes and patented, Queen’s Award-winning façade systems.

Sir Lindsay was able to chat to staff to find out more about how new jobs at Shackerley are helping to create sustainable employment and support the levelling up agenda in Lancashire.

Founder and CEO of Shackerley, Lancashire entrepreneur Brian Newell, who was made an MBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours, greeted Sir Lindsay at the company’s headquarters. He talked him through the Shackerley product range and some of the recent projects where the façades have been used, such as the Student accommodation in Leeds with its natural limestone cladding featured in Natural Stone Specialist magazine in 2021 (read that here).

Brian explained what the investment programme will mean for future growth potential and local jobs. And as he toured the factory with his guest, he explained to Sir Lindsay how Shackerley’s custom-built machinery works, as well as highlighting the company’s best practice approach to quality checks, product testing and traceability.

Brian Newell commented: “We are delighted that Sir Lindsay Hoyle has taken time out of his busy schedule to come and see what we do here at Shackerley, learning more about our contribution to both the local economy and the construction industry.

“We are proud to be innovators in the façade sector and to have raised the bar for our industry in terms of quality and safety. Sir Lindsay’s visit was a great opportunity to showcase all of that.”

Having showcased it, Shackerley is now hoping for plenty more order orders.

The 51 churches in the City of London rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire in 1666 are this year commemorating the 300th anniversary of Sir Christopher’s death.

Part of the activities in what is being called WREN300 is a series of workshops and presentations about the conservation skills used in the maintenance of the churches, which include Wren’s masterpiece, St Paul’s Cathedral.

The first of the workshops, involving the stonework of the churches, were presented last week at St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street by stone and conservation specialist Cliveden Conservation, which is among the companies that help to keep the churches in such good condition.

The first workshop on 12 April focused on stone cleaning, showing how the superheated water and laser products of, respectively, Restorative Techniques and Terra Measurement can be used to clean stonework.

There were also demonstrations of the HD3D digital surveys of the churches being carried out as part of the WREN300 programme by Terra Measurement using photogrammetry and point cloud laser technology, creating millimetre accurate digital twins of the churches.

In the evening, Oliver Caroe, one of the country’s foremost ecclesiastical architects who is the Surveyor of the Fabric of St Paul’s Cathedral, discussed the stonework renovation and alterations at St Paul’s, including the new accessibility ramps built by Stonewest.

Presentations about the broader use of stone in sustainable ways, particularly for new-build, were given by stonemason extraordinaire Pierre Bidaud of The Stonemasonry Company and engineer Steve Webb from Webb Yates.

They provided ‘A walk through the New Stone Age’, offering solutions in stone construction, notably with the use of post-tensioning, in the context of today’s social and environmental challenges, not least global warming. The evening rounded off with an opportunity for the audience to talk to the presenters informally over glasses of wine.

The following day, visitors were able to have a go at lettercutting, marking out and lime pointing during a stonemasonry experience day, again at St Bride’s, with Cliveden explaining about mortar repairs, indent repairs, repointing, mortar and stone analysis.

These and future workshops covering the conservation of metal, glass, wood, and plaster/paint are free, but the churches ask anyone wishing to attend to register, so they know how many people to expect.

There are various other events taking place as part of WREN300, including a Wrenathon of choirs from across the City of London and beyond in a 12-day festival in June taking place in several of the Square Mile Churches.

Details of all the events and booking for them (some are not free) can be found on the Square Mile Churches’ website.

Below are some photographs from Cliveden's events.

Registration to attend the Natural Stone Show and Hard Surfaces is open online at: tinyurl.com/NSS-HSregistration

The Natural Stone Show returns to ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London 6-8 June. For the second time it co-locates with Hard Surfaces to encompass the full range of products stone companies use. Both Shows include a seminar programme to explore industry trends and inspire innovation.

One of the best things about seminars is that they inspire you to think about the seeds of the ideas they sow. By the time you get back to your business you might well be ready to develop the next major evolution of your firm.

Everyone knows it’s good to step back from simply meeting the relentless requirements of everyday business to allow time for strategic thinking, but it certainly is hard to find time to do that. So make the most of the opportunity a visit to the Natural Stone Show and Hard Surfaces exhibitions and their seminar programmes present.

Seminars: The Full Programme

The full schedules for the seminar programmes at the Natural Stone Show and Hard Surfaces are on the websites of the exhibitions: www.stoneshow.co.uk and www.hardsurfaces.co.uk. On the websites you will also find listed all the exhibitors with their stand numbers. The seminars will take place in specifically created seminar studios on the exhibition floor.

Booking is not required to attend the seminars, although architects who would like to join the organisers for lunch following the Industry Choice Award presentation on 6 June should register at: bit.ly/architectsday23.

The exhibitions themselves were casualties of Covid and could not be held in their usual two-yearly cycle in 2021, although the Stone Show organisers did present a two-day conference online under the name of Stone Digital. The sessions attracted an overall audience of more than 1,600 people.

There is not room for 1,600 people to attend the seminars at ExCeL, which are taking place in the exhibition hall this time to make it easier for visitors to transition between the exhibition stands and the seminars they want to participate in.

Understandably, as it is four years since the previous Natural Stone Show, there will be a lot for visitors to catch up with and no doubt there will be a lot on the stands of exhibitors that visitors will want to see.

But Covid and the completion of Brexit have created a new normal that the sessions of the seminars of both exhibitions will explore and explain.

The seminars at the Natural Stone Show are themed by day – Tuesday is Architects Day, Wednesday is Industry Day and Thursday is Conservation Day. There is plenty of crossover of interests, but the themes are there to make each day’s topics of particular interest to the target audience.

The CPD-accredited presentations on Architects Day, for example, are specifically designed to help architects to understand stone and how it is used in the built environment, with Stone Federation Great Britain playing a leading role.

The seminar sessions will include case study presentations about the winning projects in the Natural Stone Awards that were presented by Stone Federation at London’s Leonardo Royal Tower Bridge Hotel in December.

Studies in Stone

It was announced at the Stone Awards presentation ceremony that the industry would be invited to choose a ‘best of the best’ from among the category winners to find an overall Industry Choice Award winner. The Industry Choice Award will be presented during Architects Day at the Stone Show following the Studies in Stone presentations of the category-winning projects by the architects involved in them. Among the practices involved in the category winners are Eric Parry Architects, Feilden Fowles, Gillespies and Caulfield Wright Architects.

Before the Studies in Stone that culminate in the Industry Choice Award being presented, the Architects Day presentations begin at 10am with The What, Why & How of EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) by Dr Flavie Lowres, a consultant who runs Green Thinking Ltd.

She will explain what EPDs are and the vital role they can play in helping architects to decide which materials should be used in their projects.

Sini Laine, Executive Director of KIVI (formerly the Finnish Natural Stone Association) will then present a case study of an EPD involving natural stone.

In the afternoon, attention will turn to the  Ethical & Responsible Sourcing of natural stone, with David Richardson, Director of Diagenesis Consulting, presenting an overview of the Ethical Stone Register of those in the stone industry who are working towards eliminating modern slavery and human rights infractions from their supply chains.

Marcus Paine, Director of Hutton Stone Company, will then talk about his company’s experience of moving from the Declaration Level to the Verification Level on the Ethical Stone Register.

On Industry Day (7 June), one of the subjects focused on will be training and the retention of skills in a trade that is finding it hard to recruit youngsters to take over from the previous generation, both in traditional hand skills and for the operation of saws and machinery. There will be contributions from Women in Natural Stone (WINS) and the new Stone Academy.

The Day will begin with updates on tackling diversity and the skills gap and changes to local authority planning.

Becca Cranfield, Co-Chair of WINS (Women In Natural Stone) and Director of Athena Stone Care, will talk about the mentoring, networking and support that WINS offers women in the industry.

Stone Federation will explain the aims of its new Stone Academy to bring training and career development in the stone industry together under one banner. Presenting a clear progression path should help recruitment.

Sam Thistlethwaite, Director of IC Planning and Stone Federation’s consultant on planning matters, will provide an update on the new National Planning Policy Framework and how planning authority Design Codes now being developed will help the stone industry.

This will be followed by Setting the Standard, when consultant Peter Harrison will explain what Part Five of the latest version of BS8298 will mean for best practice regarding the design and installation of internal stone cladding and lining. There will also be an explanation of how to use the new  BS7533-101 to deliver sustainable landscape schemes.

David Ellis, a Partner of Sandberg LLP, will introduce Stone Federation’s new code of practice for Natural Stone Installation in Bathrooms, Shower Enclosures and Wet Rooms.

At 3pm, the Emerging Talent Awards will be presented to the 10 people who have been nominated and selected as those most likely to be influential in the stone industry in the years ahead.

The presentation of the Emerging Talent Awards will follow a panel discussion about the skills that will be needed by the next generation of leaders in an age when construction is dominated by digital technology and legislated reductions of greenhouse gasses.

On the panel will be digital transformation  specialist Stefan Mordue, a Chartered Architect and Senior Consultant for Cohesive; sustainability specialist Chloe Newmann, Senior Structural Engineer at Webb Yates; Chris Kelsey, of The Marble & Granite Centre, who is the President of Stone Federation Great Britain. BBC presenter Susannah Streeter will be leading the discussion.

For the seminars on the final day of the Stone Show (8 June) attention turns to heritage, with Historic England curating the discussion, which starts at 10am with Clara Willett, Senior Building Conservation Advisor at Historic England, talking about the launch of the online Building Stones Database for England, developed from the Strategic Stone Study.

The Strategic Stone Study entered information gathered about quarries in England and buildings constructed from those stones on a Geological Information System (GIS) map. A GIS has different layers of information that can be explored. The study also resulted in a series of extremely useful atlases covering particular geographic areas (mostly counties).

The information was gathered and co-ordinated by the British Geological Survey, starting in 2007. Its Strategic Stone Study website shut down at the end of March this year and a new website containing the information is being launched by Historic England under the name of the Building Stones Database for England.

The presentation about the database will be followed by a presentation about another new online tool, Historic Environment Scotland’s Stone Carbon Calculator. Ali Davey, Project Manager of Traditional Skills & Materials at Historic Environment Scotland will be talking about the importance of this new tool as existing buildings try to meet the requirements necessary to reduce the 40% of Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions that come from existing buildings in use.

That leads naturally on to presentations about a number of  current research projects trying to increase the understanding of stone in relation to climate change.

Because stone comes out of the ground as a finished raw material that does not require any high energy transformations in kilns or presses, it starts off with an advantage in the low carbon stakes. Although the sawing and shaping of stone uses electrical machinery, electricity is becoming greener. Even transport has started addressing greenhouse emissions.

The first of the speakers on this subject is John Gedling, Director of Works at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. His presentation is titled Climate Change Adaptations on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Estate.

He will be followed by Dr Philip Skipper who is a consultant at Philip Skipper Heritage Science Services and a researcher at Lincoln University. He will be talking about the bioreceptivity of stone.

Bioreceptivity is a new term introduced to ecology in 1995 to describe the ability of a material to be colonised by living organisms – and you only have to look at stone to see how easily it is colonised by organisms such a lichen. But how do you determine how bioreceptive any particular material is? That is a question Dr Philip Skipper will address in his presentation about the creation of a standardised assessment methodology.

If you don’t like the biology that is inhabiting the stone, you might want to clean it using Ultra Violet-C (UVC), which has been used for decades to reduce the spread of bacteria. UVC is a disinfectant and UVC lamps are also known as germicidal lamps. Andrew More, Senior Building Services Engineer at Historic England, will offer guidance on UVC cleaning.

In the afternoon, attention turns to the sustainable supply of roofing stone and slate with John Owens, Technical Sales Manager at Welsh Slate (part of Breedon Group), talking about the production of slate from its quarries, which include the recently re-opened Ffestiniog Quarry and the largest of the slate quarries in Wales, Penrhyn, that Welsh Slate was given permission to extend last year.

Ian Ramsay, Sales Manager of Burlington, will also talk about the sustainable production of slate and stone by Burlington in Cumbria.

This will be rounded off by a case study of slate roofing.

Tile Trends

Hard Surfaces has its own conference programme located on the Hard Surfaces show floor. As at the Stone Show, it will feature free-to-attend, CPD-accredited seminars. At Hard Surfaces, those seminars  are being curated by tile industry guru Joe Simpson.

They will begin with a look at Global Tile Trends, with an exclusive three-part presentation for Hard Surfaces by Canadian tile aficionado Ryan Fasan, technical consultant to Tile of Spain USA.

A session entitled Decoration & Detail will explore how age-old techniques are being supplemented by advanced digital inkjet decorating technologies to reinvigorate the market for traditional artisan tiles as factories create increasingly authentic-looking facsimiles.

Representing the hand-made sector, Peter Wood, Managing Director of Royce Wood Tiles, will provide the back story to his company’s signature glaze effects, exploring colour, material flow, and the visual alchemy of reactive glazes.

Sean Kennard, UK Sales Manager for one of Italy’s most respected tile manufacturers, Atlas Concorde, will explain how the creation of diverse ranges of tonally balanced tiles permits specification without concern, by guaranteeing perfect colour matches across different series from an extensive product portfolio.

Environmental Edge will provide detailed analysis of tile’s green credentials, covering water re-use, embodied energy and energy co-generation, recycled content, raw material sourcing, transport and logistics, installation, durability, maintenance, and end-of-life options.

The keynote speaker at the Hard Surfaces seminars will be Mauro Rullo, representing the Italian ceramic manufacturers’ trade association Confindustria Ceramica.

He will share the podium with Emilio Mudrak and Laurens Van Graafeiland.  Emilio represents one of the world’s largest and most technically advanced tile manufacturing groups, Iris Ceramica, while Laurens is CEO of sector-leading green surfaces manufacturer Sustonable.

Representing the UK distribution sector, David Kong, Marketing Director of Domus, will use his experience as The Tile Association’s (TTA’s) lead on sustainability, to provide some hard facts on the green credentials of ceramics, and provide pointers towards a more sustainable future for hard surfaces.

With porcelain growing in popularity for exteriors as well as interiors, Elementary Exteriors will explore just why the market for 20mm and 30mm outdoor tiles has exploded. It will cover dry, pedestal, and adhesive laying systems and look at the trend for inside-out living. Speakers include Eric Garcia Millan, from leading Spainish 20mm tile manufacturer Rocersa.

This session will include an informed discussion on the controversial subjects of slip resistance and testing by Richard Bowman, from Intertile Research, one of the world’s acknowledged experts.

Façade Fashions will explore the exponential rise of ventilated ceramic façades with the look of stone and marble, metals, concrete and timber. It will be led by Nic Shannon, Managing Director of Domus Façades, one of the UK’s major cladding contractors, who will be joined by Aaron Capon, National Façades Manager of Dekton and Silestone manufacturer Cosentino.

Installation Insights will investigate topics surrounding the handling and installation of XXL format tiles, including levelling systems, and tools to facilitate handling of these extra large pieces safely and securely on site.

This will draw on the expertise of Italian tool brand Brevetti Montolit, represented by Jason Smith, and Rubi, the leading Spanish tool manufacturer with a long-established UK subsidiary, represented by David Honeywell, Rubi’s Commercial Director.

Worktop Masterclasses will be presented by a well-respected worktop distributor, an emerging force in porcelain worktops, and construction chemicals suppliers showing how to deliver a reliable path to successful porcelain worktop installation.

UK Solmar is well known for its marble, quartzite and granite, and at the Natural Stone Show it is introducing a new product that combines natural materials with quartz inserts.

It is a niche product by Chroma, a small company in Italy that Solmar is partnering to sell its hybrid materials inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired using lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

Chroma uses a blend of materials, fine-tuned in its R&D laboratories and workshops, to give new life to scrap materials held together using a resin made not from petrochemicals but the shells of cashew nuts.

This new product is for those who want an exclusive engineered surface without the environmental impact of a resin from the petrochemical industry. And although it is aimed at the more discerning end of the market, it is competitively priced for a premium product.

UK Solmar is the British arm of Italian company CMP Solmar. It opened its warehouse in Bishop’s Stortford in 2021 and has already become well known for its exclusive marbles, quartzites and granites.

Until now it has concentrated on natural stone, but with this new product is dipping its toe into the engineered stone market and taking it to the Natural Stone Show to guage the response. So go along to stand G35 and talk to Marco Cioffi about the new range.

Northern Precision is back at the Natural Stone Show this year hoping to repeat the success it had at the exhibition in 2019.

Northern Precision is the supplier of specialist fastenings, and one of the products it was showing at the Stone Show last time was Italian company Specialinsert’s Keep-Nut.

It turned out to be just what Wandsworth Council and its lighting contractor, Armadillo Lighting based in Essex, had been looking for to fix new low energy LED downlighting on the sides and under the arches of London’s Putney Bridge.

The bridge is built from Cornish granite, which helps explain how it has survived so well.

It was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and opened in 1886. Today, it is a Listed ancient monument, which means any interventions need to be kept to a minimum.

The Keep-Nut from Northern Precision was ideal. It comes in a number of sizes but requires a hole of just 8-10mm deep. It is made of stainless steel and is simply hammered into the hole. An M6 machine screw only goes into the Keep-Nut 6mm to securely fasten whatever is being attached to it.

Each Keep-Nut is said to be able to resist a pullout force of 280kg. To demonstrate the strength of the Keep-Nut at the Stone Show at ExCeL London in 2019, Northern Precision had a 200kg piece of marble hanging from a single fixing.

Wandsworth Council and its lighting contractors satisfied themselves that the Keep-Nuts would work just as well in the Cornish granite of Putney Bridge by putting one into a piece of the same granite and lifting three men from it at the same time.

It had been expected to take a week to fix the lighting on Putney Bridge but using the Keep-Nut meant the job was finished in three days.

Keep-Nut is just one of the specialist fastenings sold by Northern Precision. At this year’s Stone Show it will be introducing a new fastener, called Fast-Con, from the Italians. It is a two part concealed, quick assembly snap on / pull off fastening.

Made from stainless steel, it is practically indestructible and allows panels and coverings to be quickly snapped into place. There are no edge fixings, so panels can abut perfectly. If a panel is in front of pipes or electrical units, it can be removed without having to re-tile the whole wall. The release force is 7-10kg, depending on which Fast-Con is used. A Fast-Con stainless steel centre-marking device is available to facilitate perfect hole alignment every time.

Steve Smith says Northern Precision is back at the Natural Stone Show this year because it is an event that works for the company. He says: “We have stopped doing a lot of shows and are just concentrating now on those where the quality of visitor makes it worthwhile for us.”

To see the full list of exhibitors at the Natural Stone Show this year visit the website www.stoneshow.co.uk.

“Mark, I’m only a small business and I feel bombarded with emails and newsletters offering me all sorts of help for my business. But I haven’t got time to read everything.  What would be your three top tips regarding skills development?”

That was a question I received just this week. It would seem rude not to reply, so here goes.

Tip No1: Every CITB registered firm has a CITB Advisor allocated to help with guidance about applying for funding and grants for training and qualifications. If your CITB Advisor isn’t routinely popping in, get on to it today.

Tip No2: CITB is good, but it does not always know about specialist sectors in great detail. To bridge this gap, it funded industry training groups. Ours is the Natural Stone Industry Training Group (NSITG). It is made up of committed folk from the natural stone sector. NSITG is often first to hear about available funding. It also helps steer the development of qualifications and training packages – as it did the Trailblazer apprenticeship. At the very least, ensure you are on the NSITG emailing list.

Tip No3: There is strength in association and our sector’s trade association is Stone Federation GB. Membership brings a valuable opportunity to be party to its committee work. You will probably find several of its committees and forums support your business needs and they will aim to keep you abreast of news that can support the growth of your business.

Bonus Tip: Engage. Attend annual meetings, networking events and forums, and all of a sudden you are plugging-in to the dynamic current of this exciting sector of the construction industry.

Bonus Tip No2: Ensure you are measuring the skills requirements of your business. Have job descriptions in place. Conduct appraisals. Highlight gaps in skills, training and qualifications and formulate a plan to fill those gaps.

Bonus Tip No3: Always go with a training provider who doubles the number of tips you asked for (only kidding!). But seriously, this magazine, this column and my business is all about keeping you informed, about Qualifying the Workforce, as we say. If there are any subjects you’d like me to cover, send me a message using the contacts below the picture of me. 

In future columns I will tell you the latest on apprenticeships, the fee-neutral specialist applied-skills programmes (SAPs) for stone fixing, façade preservation and heritage stonemasonry, on-site NVQ assessment for experienced workers, funding and grants, CSCS cards, taster courses, professional body membership, specific skills for new build and conservation and anything topical that comes up.

Below are some subjects you might want to follow up with me.

• Specialist Applied-Skills Programmes (SAPs). These are a training route to NVQs. The programmes are fee-neutral and available in Façade Preservation and Stone Fixing. I’d also like to know if you are interested in a SAP for Heritage Stonemasonry (at NVQ level 3).
• The ending of the industry accreditation* route to CSCS cards means if you want to remain carded you need a qualification, normally an NVQ. Training for these NVQs is available at preferential fee rates for those who hold, or have held, cards through industry accreditation.
• Achieving an NVQ at work is possible through the on-site assessment (OSAT) route. There are OSATs for a wide range of stonemasonry related activities. They also cover supervisory, heritage, contracts and management roles.

*Footnote: Industry accreditation is often termed ‘grandfather rights’. I didn’t realise it, but that term has a negative or offensive connotation in other walks of life, which is why I have stopped using it.

Adam Reuvany is promising something a bit tasty on the stand of stone wholesaler Bloomstones London at the Natural Stone Show this year.

Bloomstones will be introducing the Cooking Surface Prime under-surface induction hobs it is now selling in conjunction with its slabs from the bright, new 1,400m2 headquarters it moved into in the summer last year.

The energy-efficient hobs fit under worksurfaces and heat pots and pans without any indication necessary on the surface that there is a hob there. It is ideal for space-limited London apartments and increasingly popular garden kitchens.

The plan is to have the hobs live under one of the company’s worktops on its stand at the show to demonstrate the effectiveness of these hobs by actually cooking something.

Visitors will be able to try it out for themselves by taking part in a competition to cook an omelette in the quickest time.

Induction hobs work by heating the metal vessels being used for the cooking rather than the surface they are standing on. Of course, the heated vessel also heats the surface, but the surface remains a lot cooler than a traditional hob gets.

Bloomstones’ move into new premises in Dartford has given it an attractive new showroom and office area to welcome customers into as well as a large warehouse where they can see the range of 400 varieties of natural stone, Bloomstones quartz and ABK porcelain from Italy that the company sells.

Just off the M25, the new premises give Bloomstones easy access to the country’s motorway network to make deliveries from Southampton to Leeds without an overnighter.

Bloomstones believes suppliers should be making it easier for customers to choose natural stone and is happy to send slabs to its customers’ showrooms and studios for their customers to approve before buying. If the slabs are not sold, Bloomstones will take them back. “We do really well with quartzite,” says Adam, “because of the high quality of the products we sell.”

Bloomstones is determined to maintain an identity of its own that sets it apart from its competitors, concentrating on supplying products mostly from Italy, India and Brazil, plus some carefully chosen materials from Spain. The products it has in stock can be seen on its website and it promotes what is in stock on social media.

This year Bloomstones has a new member of staff with the appointment of Gary Chipping, previously with Nicobond, who is concentrating on increasing the Bloomstones displays in KBB showrooms, although Bloomstones only sells to fabricators.

To see the full list of exhibitors at the Natural Stone Show this time visit the website  www.stoneshow.co.uk.

Ava Stone is the name under which large format luxury Italian porcelain is being sold by La Fabbrica, part of the fast-growing Italcer Group established in 2014 and already claiming fourth place among the largest porcelain producers.

Andrew Sims, heading the Ava Stone marketing push in the UK, says: “Ava Stone are excited to present our large format offering at the ‘go to’ national event for fabricators and stonemasons – Hard Surfaces 2023. We look forward to meeting with like minded colleagues to present our market leading range of products in the rapidly growing porcelain large slab market.”

Among the products on the stand will be the new Macchia Antica pictured here. It is a porcelain marble-effect worktop from Ava Stone offered in 12 and 20mm thicknesses. It is also available in 6mm thickness for walls and floors. Sizes are 320cm x 160cm, 280cm x 120cm, 120cm x 120cm and 60cm x 120cm.

At Hard Surfaces You will also be able to see the 6mm thick Corten large format collection for cabinets and splashbacks (also shown in the picture) that was recently added to the Ava Stone range.

Italcer’s drive for innovation and excellence does not stop with aesthetics, it also extends to sustainability, which is especially important on commercial projects. Last year the group saw an investment of €10million in improving sustainability pay off when it beat 100 of Italy’s other shortlisted top companies to win the country’s Sustainability Award 2022.

Graziano Verdi, CEO of Italcer Group, says that sustainability and responsible corporate governance is a “cornerstone of our business model and our competitiveness”.

The investment included a new press “to optimise and speed up every production phase with the lowest energy consumption”, says Graziano.

See the full list of exhibitors at Hard Surfaces at www.hardsurfaces.co.uk.

A Bill is making its way through Parliament intended to make it easier for employees to negotiate flexible working arrangements. To find out what that could mean for you, book a free place on the Timewise  webinar on Tuesday 23 May.

The webinar has been organised by the Natural Stone Industry Training Group (NSITG) through its membership of the Construction Leadership Council People & Skills network.

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, currently being scrutinised by the House of Lords, is likely to become law because it is supported by all the major political parties. Both Conservative and Labour pledged to expand flexible working rights in their 2019 election manifestos.

The Bill gives employees the right to ask for flexible arrangements as soon as they are engaged by a company (that right does not currently kick in until after 26 weeks).

The Bill also proposes to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996, which includes the right to ask for flexible arrangements, in the following ways:

• removing the requirement for employees to explain in their applications for flexible working what effect they think the arrangements will have on the employer
• allowing employees to make two flexible working requests each year instead of the one currently allowed
• requiring employers to consult with the employee before being allowed to refuse an application
• reducing the deadline for an employer decision on flexible working requests from three months to two months.

If the Bill becomes law it will apply to England, Scotland and Wales but not Northern Ireland, where employment law is devolved.

The webinar about the proposed changes will include contributions from flexible working experts, legal experts, employers who already openly discuss flexible working options when hiring, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Business & Trade, Kevin Hollinrake MP.

You can register to participate in the webinar here.

Mathematicians have created a 13-sided tile shape that produces a pattern that never repeats.

A shape that produces a non-repeating pattern is known as an einstein (German for 'one stone'), although this shape has been nicknamed 'the hat'.

Mathematicians have been searching for such a shape for decades. It was not even clear if it could exist. But, with the help of a lot of computing power, the shape has been found along with a proof that it is aperiodic, as a not repeating pattern is called. And the shape is a lot simpler than many had supposed it would need to be.

In fact, there have been two proofs, one itself including new maths, which, according to The Times newspaper, has already led to the discovery of another aperiodic shape that is said to look a bit like a turtle. And there could be a whole family of other geometrically linked einstein shapes. 

It is probably only a matter of time before a tile company manufactures tiles in an einstein shape, although laying them is not as straightforward as laying rectangles and, as the pattern does not repeat, any template would need to be as big as the wall or floor being tiled.

If such a tile is ever to be used on a wall or floor, it will certainly test the skills and the patience of the tiler(s) laying it.