Landscape architects seem to be taking a second look at British stone. Lifetime costing helps in the selection of any stone for hard landscaping and just possibly environmental concerns are encouraging specifiers to try to reduce the encapsulated carbon content of the materials they are using by specifying stone that has not been shipped half way round the world – although suppliers say it is not an issue typically raised with them.

More likely the influencing factor is the diminishing gap between the price of indigenous and European stone and the price of stone from the Far East.

A local stone has the essential character of the area where it is to be used, which is an appealing feature for some projects, and there is a comfort factor in using a stone with a provenance that shows it can survive the vagaries of the British climate, especially as some of those who have imported stone without any knowledge of the materials they are dealing with have discovered to their (and their client’s) dismay that stone is not all the same.

It seems to have proved difficult for some specifiers and clients to understand that stone is not a commodity that they buy simply on the basis of the lowest price. But they are learning. As natural granite and sandstone, in particular, have become the materials of choice in many hard landscaping projects, so those choosing them are learning from experience that they will not all perform in the same way.

Of course, when money is tight (and even when it isn’t), price is an influencing factor, but as the graphs on the right show, the price of stone imports for hard landscaping has been rising quite sharply – up 40% since 2005.

The government figures only provide a snapshot of stone imports for hard landscaping. They do not include all the stone hard landscaping imported because of the way materials and products are classified, but they do indicate trends. There are no reliable figures for dimensional stone production in the UK, but anecdotal evidence from the British quarries that produce hard landscaping suggest demand has held up reasonably well and, as the import figures also show, saw some improvement last year.

However, according to the producers, the market has resisted price increases of British stone. In fact, the price of some products has fallen back to the levels of 2005, while the exchange rate and a big increase in the price of shipping last year contributed to the continuing upward trend in the price of imports, 90% of which by value and 94% by volume come from the Far East.

By far the majority of stone used in hard landscaping, for both commercial and domestic projects, is imported and the lower price of imports has played a significant part in the growth in popularity of the natural material. But if imports have done the groundwork in educating customers about stone, it looks as if British producers are starting to benefit from a more discerning clientele.