Rising fuel and shipping costs, and rapidly rising labour rates, are encouraging British companies to move their manufacturing facilities back to the UK.

Impulse Bathrooms and Haven products, previously manufactured in the Far East, are now being made in Britain specifically for the British market.

A key rationale behind the acquisition of the former Ideal Standard production facilities at Middlewich by Impulse Bathrooms’ sister company, Ours Sanitary Ware, was to enable all Impulse Bathrooms products to be made in the UK.

Impulse Bathrooms general manager Gary Hawkins said: “The global marketplace has changed a lot recently. There is no longer any cost advantage in making products in the Far East rather than in Europe.”

For Impulse Bathrooms there are significant benefits in producing locally, principally in shorter lead times, swifter reaction times and increased flexibility to respond to customer needs.

“The production resources at our disposal are second to none with highly skilled and vastly experienced casters and ceramics operatives,” said Hawkins. “It’s undoubtedly the best of both worlds and a springboard for Impulse Bathrooms' future growth.”

Shower manufacturer Haven, part of the Roman group of Companies, is also moving the manufacture of its sister company’s range of enclosures and bath screens back to the UK.

In a move engineered to combat low cost and low quality imports from China, Roman set up sister company Haven in 2006, introducing a range of price-sensitive models manufactured in China.

Due to the rise in costs and movement of the pound against the US dollar, the company has now decided the time is right to move the manufacture of those products to its County Durham factory headquarters.

Following the move, Roman has been backing the Stoves campaign to promote and support UK manufacture and is promoting all Roman and Haven products as being UK manufactured by displaying the Stoves ‘Made in Britain’ tick logo.

“Being a British designer and manufacturer is very important to us as a company,” said Roman Group managing director, David Osborne. “Due to the current market conditions and the popularity of the Haven products, we are now able to make the move and bring the manufacture of these products in house."