The move was confirmed in the firm’s interim results for the six months to June 30 2023 which showed turnover down to £223m from £259m last time as pre-tax profit fell to £30m from £51m.

Ibstock said the Ravenhead site is a higher-cost wire-cut brick factory producing 40m units a year.

Chief Executive Officer Joe Hudson said: “As we have done previously during periods of challenging trading, we have taken decisive action to reduce costs across the business; this includes the difficult decision to propose the closure of our Ravenhead brick factory.

“We remain vigilant on costs and, as we have demonstrated in the recent past, will continue to take any further action necessary to ensure capacity is aligned with market demand, to protect the performance of the business.

Ibstock has booked the cost of closing the Ravenhead site at £10.7m including £1.5m in redundancy payments.