A WHOPPING 500 million bricks sit unused in Britain – enough to build 50,000 homes and 10 towns, TUC Congress heard yesterday.

GMB delegate and brickworker Lewis Parmenter told delegates in Brighton that the unused bricks are “enough to provide homes for hundreds of thousands of people.”

He added: “But without spades in the ground to build the homes we need, our industry will collapse and 8,000 jobs will go: including mine.

“An industrial strategy for housing is not complicated. If we don’t build the homes, then the bricks don’t get sold. They just sit there in the yards. And we can’t make more bricks if the current stocks aren’t being bought.

“And what happens when the jobs go? Our towns go with them.”

The latest government figures show brick imports soared by almost 12 per cent to 352m last year, with imports accounting for around 20 per cent of the British market. Domestic production was 1.5 billion, with 17m exported.