Cemex UK has set up a volumetric concrete and screed service in Dorset to serve smaller building projects.

Above: The Valuemix operation in Poole

It is the second outlet for Cemex’s Valuemix operation; its first was set up in Altrincham in 2014 to serve the Manchester region.

Two volumetric vehicles have now been put into operation based at Cemex’s Poole readymix site. Business manager Rob Zsigo said: “This new business in Poole is a development in the customer offering by Cemex. As one of the country’s leading building materials supplier we will now be able to offer local small to medium businesses and individuals, the same quality and innovative products that we supply to large contractors building major constructions such as 20 Fenchurch Street and Crossrail in London.”

As in Altrincham, Cemex’s volumetric vehicle meet the higher safety standards of a HGV, it says, even though – due to a historic quirk of law that has yet  to be addressed – volumetric vehicles are only required to meet the much lower engineering plant standards, like mobile cranes. The results of a Department of Transport review of the relevant legislation are long overdue. Consultation on its proposals closed in March 2015 and the results were published in August 2015, but since then, nothing.

A volumetric mixer is an HGV that carries the individual materials in separate bins required to make concrete such as cement and sand and mixes them at the customer’s site. Cemex says that there has been a growing trend in the market to supply materials via volumetric vehicles, with an estimated two million cubic metres of concrete delivered annually to customers.  A report published last year by Regeneris Consulting found that the volumetric sector was worth £210m a year to the UK economy,

Cemex’s Valuemix division provides small to medium construction businesses, local builders and individuals with quality assured concrete and screed from as little as half a cubic metre, for a small path, paving and foundation type projects, up to loads of eight cubic metres for larger building projects. All loads have the QSRMC (quality scheme for readymix concrete) assurance.