Welcome to the Dudley Unplugged podcast, a show that gets to

the heart of plumbing. Well,

welcome back to another episode of Dudley Unplugged. Today we're going

to be talking about water wastage and flushing the toilet and

some really nice bathroom suites. So I'm your host,

Mark Morris, and we're joined on Dudley Unplugged today by Josh Bennett, a

product manager from Thomas Dudley, and Sean Foley

and Sophie Webster, both from Lesser Go Bathrooms. So, welcome everybody. Hi

So if I could start with Sean and Sophie, can you

tell us a little bit about Let's Go Bathrooms, a bit about its history and

Yeah, so Lesico is

an Egyptian company. However, we export to

50 different countries. It came into the

UK around 1987, I believe it was. And

since then we've grown to three ranges, which

is our Atlas Professional, Atlas Trade and

Excellent. So the Egyptian factories, just to

add to that, the Egyptian factories produce nearly 7 million pieces of

sanitary a year. 7 million? 7 million. And the

UK is one of the biggest markets, although as Sophie said they export to

It's, it's huge. Yeah. They're one of the world's largest manufacturers of sanitary

wear. So really big organization, really well supported. Um,

we're really well supported in the UK by that parent company, but we,

um, we've, we've done some great things in the UK

and grown from, um, a relatively lowly

position, um, in through the seventies and

eighties, I think. Um, and we're now the second

Wow, that's quite some substantial growth there from where

it was to being the second biggest in the country. That's quite a

feather in your cap really. Indeed. Yeah, I mean how do you find it with

having sort of the mother company in Egypt? Do you get to go out very

We're often out in Egypt. We love

to take customers out and show them the operation. One of the interesting things about

the Egyptian factory is its size. So you

are transported around the site on buggies or in cars. It's

not a walkable site. It's very, very significant. It's

a wonderful place to go as well, Egypt, full of rich culture. and

the obvious kind of tourist spots like the pyramids.

So yeah, we love to take customers out there and show them

the operations. In terms of the UK, the UK operates, the UK

PLC operates almost completely independently.

That's our parent company, but we're responsible in the UK for

I know Josh, you went out not so long ago, and I did

see a video you posted on social media of trying to cross a road, which I

It is. I mean, yeah, I think it's about 6,000 people

on the main site, yeah, trying to get around the

factory, as you say. It's by car. It is vast. It is

sanitarium on a whole nother level compared to what I've seen previously. And

yes, Egypt itself, yeah, I can't recommend it enough. Absolutely great place to

visit. But yeah, crossing the road is a game in

itself. A bit more dangerous than the video game,

I can't imagine it's like a game of Frogger, because you're going across the road trying to

I think you gave up, didn't you, didn't you? I did, I did. We got the taxis across the road, basically, yeah.

It sounds like it's an amazing place. Yeah, indeed. For a

Well, I mean, I don't know the history back

that far, but the business

has established itself over a significant period

So I suppose that

you supply multiple different industry sectors with

your bathroom suites. Is that how you sort of design them to sort of fit different ones

or is it anything more sort of technical than that? So

if you're supplying it into hotels, for instance, do you have to have certain things

Yeah, absolutely. Lessico Bathrooms, initially, going

back to your question about the historical context, were

manufacturers of very high quality but well-priced, good

value sanitary wear. And the UK business was built on that premise. But

over the last probably decade or so, Lecico bathrooms have

evolved as a business to service many

more sectors in the UK with a much broader product range at

different price points, different product categories, and

therefore we can service We can service

the jobbing plumber who's looking for good value for

a landlord's property, for instance, or for a

residential refurbishment at

different price points. So from a cheap and cheerful, no-frills

bathroom range all the way up to luxury bathroom suites,

furniture, brushed brass handles. black

sanitary wear, black brass wear. So we

have a broad enough product range to cater for

domestic, but we also have an extended product range into commercial.

So we can service commercial projects, whether it be new projects or

refurbishment projects, and hit those specific requirements

that are needed, whether it's Doc M, whether

it's water saving solutions, whether it's specialist

products like urinals. What

Education, very good point, yes. Specific ranges designed

I suppose people forget that, you know, requirements for

different things like for, as you mentioned, infant schools, they've got to be a lot smaller,

got to operate a lot lower to the ground, you know. So I think people forget

Yeah, there's a lot of specialist product that's designed for those

different market sectors and Lessico are able to

supply all of those sectors, which is one of the

reasons why they've seen such fantastic growth

I mean you mentioned sort of black sanitary wear and stuff like that

or the buttons and push buttons. Have you found that the trends have changed over

the last few years and what people are asking for is sort of really sort

of changed a lot from what was maybe a traditional sort of maybe a

Colours definitely come back into the

bathrooms market after a significant period of of

white, white's good enough. I'm not saying we're back

in the 70s and 80s of the whisper greys. We're

not seeing that kind of extent of colour

in the bathroom, but definitely there's more colour. It's

usually in a niche part of the market, so it doesn't represent significant

volumes. which obviously we

all appreciate, but I think the colors really coming in and being driven by

the trend towards using furniture in a bathroom. So

we lose pedestals, we now use furniture, need more

storage in the bathroom, different finishes, different colors,

and then also bringing in brass and satin

and nickel in terms of brassware and handles is

Yeah, definitely the matte green that we've brought in with our furniture and

Matte green and cobalt blue, yeah, really, really popular in our design series

range in Zara and Layla. Really, really,

you know, 10 years ago you'd have said, no, no, no,

please don't bring those products into the UK market and launch them.

Most of our orders are on those two product ranges,

aren't they? Those two colour schemes. More so than the gloss whites and

I think, I mean, purely from an outside point of view, I would say

maybe it's the people want to use the bathroom more as a room

rather than just a functioning space. So I

would say it's become, even my bathroom done, you know, what suite do

you want? What do you want it to look like? And even when we chose the bath because bathroom

isn't very big but they said oh you can have a different bath it's very thin and

it goes deep so you can actually get more water in it because

it's made it a lot thinner designed specifically for smaller bathrooms so

you know probably driving through the different colors it's

probably taste people want different things on the bathroom to look like a room rather

than just a functioning space as tastes change

so It's probably been driven by the consumer, probably, in

terms of what they're asking for. Would you think that's probably sort of

Yeah, I think it's how a design sort of meets that function aspect. And

that's definitely why you've seen furniture on the increase, no

doubt. You're kind of getting rid of the pedestal to a certain extent

and pushing towards furniture, which has got that more

practical aspect. But it's also something you can have a bit of fun with, with the splashes

Yeah, it's interesting when you say, obviously, now you've said it,

mine doesn't have a pedestal because it's sitting on top of a unit. And

it's only when you say that, I think, oh yeah, actually, we chose that

specifically so it matches the toilet unit, so now it looks like a proper joined

And I think interestingly, in terms of those broader trends, Just

like the kitchen, the bathroom and the kitchen, you know, going back a significant

period of time, were very much rooms of function. And

there was different living spaces in the house, but now we

use all of our different rooms as living spaces with their own identity.

The kitchen has now become, in many houses, it's the

living space. You know, you're bringing sofas in there, you've

got dining tables, you're entertaining the kitchen. Bathroom

space, I'm not saying you're entertaining the bathroom space. The bathroom space is the area

that you can retreat to. And

it serves more than just a functional purpose in

many properties now. It's that area for, almost for

So just on that note, obviously when it comes

to bathrooms, it uses a lot of water. So, I mean, water

savings, I think, has become more of a thing over the last,

sort of, maybe last decade. I remember when I was growing up,

Well, I don't even... Well, I came from a relatively council

estate, and, you know, I don't think we had a hose pipe. It wasn't something we thought about, but

even then, you probably had to bring it through the house and connect it to the sink. We didn't have

an outside tap or anything for it. But have you seen water

savings, or has that been a driver for you when you're looking at

You reminded me of my youth now in an outside toilet with

a high level 13 litre flush WC.

I think she used to use newspaper on the side rather than toilet paper as well. I

don't know why, I just have a memory of using it and being scared

So we're showing our age there. Sorry,

Water saving is being driven from a number of

different angles. I think quite rightly responsible

manufacturers are designing products now that are water saving

because we all understand the broader need

for us to have a more sustainable environment for

our kids. I think it's been driven through legislation, particularly

in the space of new buildings, new

residential buildings, part G of the building regulations. Commercial

new buildings now have a number of different sustainability methodologies

that they need to align to to achieve certain scores,

whether it be BREEAM or LEED or SCAR ratings. So

buildings are now being designed with water saving in mind. Commercial buildings,

I think the figure is well above 70% of water use

in commercial buildings is from bathrooms, washrooms, and the majority

is from WCs. And that's a lot of water, isn't it? So

there's a massive area where we can significantly save

water. On the consumer sense, yeah, we

all pay water bills. It's times

are tough for lots of people. There's a lot of pressure on finances, disposable

incomes, anything that you can save on your bills

is going to be seen as a real positive. So there is demand now

from the consumer side. So all of these are combining together to

drive a broader change in the industry where we all

develop products that are going to save

more water, use less water and benefit everyone in

I suppose leading on to that I suppose, I mean Josh you

can probably comment more on this, there was a leaky loo

report issued a few years ago that showed around about four, four and a half to five

percent of toilets leak. either from

the inlet valve or the outlet valve that's inside the toilet. We

did a bit of calculation and that works out to about clean

and fresh drinking water going down the toilet, to about four and a half million bathfuls every

single day across the country, which is wasted. So,

I mean, Josh, working for a company like Thomas Dudley

that always tries to keep these kind of figures in mind in

its design process, What's

Thomson been doing lately to try and sort of sort of help mitigate that

kind of issues that come up and what sort of things would you recommend that can

I mean, so looking at it from a macro level, just to reinforce

what Sean was talking about, there's basically a need to do more with

less. So we have a growing population, we have

a reluctance to build new reservoirs, there's a

reluctance to increase water bills for various reasons, including

But there's challenges with the water infrastructure as

Very much so. Very much so. Leaking infrastructure as well. Absolutely, yeah.

So if you're looking at it from a new build point of view, one

of the things that we're getting increasing demand from the top 10 house builders for

now is a single low flush to start off

with. So instead of having a six litre flush, which is the regulatory standard

now, they're looking at four litre flushing and below. So

that's something we can offer out of the box right now. I

think from Lecico's point of view, one of the really cool products you guys have Particularly

for the commercial market is of course Prepa L'Air, which I don't know if

Yeah I can do. So we've been in partnership with

Yeah, yeah, possibly more. So propel-air is

low flush. It works. I don't

Yeah. It's

the world's lowest water flush WC, which uses

an air push and patented technology. Is

that sort of like what you get on an aeroplane maybe? No that's a vacuum, that's

a shock, this is air pushed. And

you know the technology is being developed to be even lower, flush, and

it's very, very, very popular

and proving a big winner in the commercial space,

not so much the residential space. Residentials are slightly different. The

propane air is designed to operate in

high traffic areas and significant savings can then

be made. But interestingly on the On

the flushing, broadly speaking, we've gone from a 13 litre

to a 9 litre flush. Historically, we've then driven down

to a 6 litre flush as kind of an industry standard. We've

got the 6 and 4 litre dual flush and 4 and 2.6 litre

dual flush. And then the next evolution from there

is lower still. So there's a real significant, over time, there's

It's interesting, from someone who, I mean, I've only been in the industry four years,

so when you're talking sort of six litre flush, four litre flush, I

find it hard to visualise what that actually means in reality. But it's a significant amount

I mean, for most people, I don't think most people, consuming, I'll take this as

if it's me, I wouldn't have a clue how much water is in the toilet system. I

know you could get a brick and put a brick in and it would reduce water. People didn't really understand why

I was putting a brick in the toilet, but, you know, people say you could put a brick in

or you can buy those, whatever the product bags you can put in

that reduces the amount of water in. But I think for most

people, as long as it flushes the waste away, I don't think people care. And

I think that's, I don't think people realise how much waste is, how

much water is actually being used in the toilet, or how much is being wasted down the toilet. I

think, and maybe that's geographical, maybe people in the South, in the

South East might care more because a lot of it will be on metres. And

I think the way that they probably get targeted is down that way

because there's a bigger population and I imagine their infrastructure is

under a lot more pressure. But it's interesting that, And

I imagine you've seen this, if you've been in the UK since 87, is

that back in 87 it was all siphons. And now

you've got to go through the mix and then you've got valves. So

that's probably had to affect how you manufacture or what type of

products Lessico actually bring to the market, I imagine, with that change. Yeah

yeah absolutely. So have you seen how I mean that's from

a design point of view obviously your siphon would generally be on the front and

now you've got buttons that can pretty much go anywhere so how from a

from a design point of view how do you actually approach that where people want different

Well again it's back to one of your earlier questions about the

different sectors that we serve because there's different requirements for

different sectors. Obviously

we've gone from lever flushing, siphon

flushing, to push button flushing. We've

now got in-wall frames and cisterns that

are built with elegant flush plates, dual

flush or single flush. flush plates which are designed

for probably more, what's the word I guess,

more design aesthetic driven

choices where it's going to look a little bit

nicer. So there's lots of different variations and

it's based on our philosophy is create

the right product solution for the right market. and offer best

I suppose that leads us on, actually, Josh, to a new product that Thomas

Dudley's working with Lessico on, which is the Quantum.

Yeah, I mean, it's designed to fill a couple of

Yeah, so Quantum is our first

true push-button siphon. Now,

as we've talked about, lever-operated siphons were standard

product up till 2000. Water regulations

changed in 2000 to harmonize to European standards. They allowed push-button

valves into the market. And what's really happened over the last 20 years,

progressively, is more and more products, more

and more bathrooms have been replaced. So they've been replacing lever-operated

toilets with push-button valves. And the problem of

push-button valves is accelerated to where we are today. What's

the problem? The problem is quite simple, really. A push-button valve has a

dynamic seal beneath the waterline that can dry, perish,

get dirt in it. And when that seal fails, you

can have a leaky loo, as it's called. And that leaky loo when

it leaks is found to be on average 150 or 200 to

400 litres of water a day, which

That's quite a lot per toilet. Even for a consumer that may only

Yeah and some, whilst the leaky loo reports talked about from four to

eight percent as an average, some water companies now are talking about

25 percent of all toilets leaking. Now of course some of those leaks,

a significant proportion of the leaks are from the flush valve and also from

the inlet valve. So quantum is addressing the flush

valve. So if you could get a quantum for me Mark. Quantum

is the culmination of about, is it by magic? It's

about three, there's been about three

different versions of this particular iteration, but

as a product development, it's been going on 15, 20 years, and it's been a real challenge

from a product development point of view to achieve a

push, bust, and siphon as crazy as it sounds, as silly as

it sounds, really. To achieve flush performance of

a flush valve with siphonically operated technology is

a challenge in itself. The way a siphon delivers water is quite

different to the way a flush valve delivers water. If

you remember your old lever, sometimes it was really hard to start a flush. So trying

to get that lever actuation force through

a push button without it being hard to push has been a real challenge.

So you have the challenge of being light to flush, really

good flush performance, as if it was a flush valve, and low travel.

You didn't want a really hard button because we found with kids and the elderly, they don't

want to push the button loads in. And that's what we've ultimately achieved

with Quantum is that this version is

to be deployed in close couple suites, the Saqqara and Clio.

We see this particularly relevant to housing associations. Housing associations, there's

two million homes under management in the UK. They are

interested in reducing water bills for their tenants and also making it

easier to maintain and service their properties because they usually

manage their properties themselves. So that's Quantum in a

I mean it's interesting that obviously Tom's studying Let's Go but we're sort of

working together on this to get it to market. Yes. I

suppose between the two companies you see a lot of benefits from

Yeah, 100 percent. And the two organizations have been

working in partnership for many, many years. And it's

it's fantastic tech. And if we can bring that new

technology to market for the benefit of both organizations and

at the same time tick boxes that need to be ticked in

terms of reducing water volumes and flushing, then it's it's

just a win, win, win situation. So we think it's

Yeah, because it kind of answers the sort of questions where, I

mean, I had no idea that when I first started working for

Thomas Dudley that if a system had a handle, it was a siphon, and

if it had a button, it was a valve. No idea that that was the case. So obviously

with handles, they're not necessarily aesthetically pleasing, but

siphons are infinitely better than a valve, which is

one of those ironies that actually there is a perfectly solution to

leaky loose, which is the siphon. But people

want to have a nice button on their stuff because it looks nice. So

And so that's a challenge in

itself because the hidden systems, often the actuation is done through a flush plate

or a push button as opposed to a lever. You do see some

levers maybe in commercial environments, an

airport maybe or a service station. But generally speaking,

It's the big tell. Flush valves are generally, are

always operated by some method of push button. It's important

to get across for those listening, watching, what

the difference is between a siphon or a flush valve really. Siphon ultimately has

to lift water up and over in order to start a flush, and that's how quantum

works. So in its natural state, it physically can never leak.

Whereas a flush valve, because of that dynamic seal that dumps water

into a toilet, that dynamic seal that's beneath the waterline, that's

the problem area. That's what you're trying to get around with a siphon. That's why, just

for those listening, siphons are just bulletproof in their

natural form. The only way a siphon can fail, in inverted commas, is the diaphragm

can tear and you might remember where you're pushing a lever repeatedly to start

a flush, that's the tell. But even with this product, it's demountable in

But even with a damaged diaphragm, it still wouldn't leak anyway. No, it still doesn't leak. I

mean, that's quite important. I mean, I suppose for a

consumer or anyone at home, if they're not sure if they've got a leaky toilet, there's

probably, because it can just be a very small leak.

I suppose there's a surefire way of testing it, Josh. I'm sure you

Yes, very much so. So, yeah, for

those listening or watching, leaky loos are quite hard to identify

in reality because, of course, the water is clear. So, yeah, you can drop a

little bit of paper on the back after a flush and see if that's getting rinsed away.

A leak can only be a small trickle at the back of the pan and

that'll be around 150 litres a day. But

the more average one, you might see a stream if you're lucky. That'll

be more like 400 liters a day. But we've seen toilets leaking over a thousand liters

a day. So if you're talking in a hotel application where you've got 100 toilets

in your hotel, you are talking around 10 of

those toilets at any one time are leaking. So why

John, do you see this as a kind of a way forward, as

bridging a gap between what we've got and where we really

A hundred percent. I think the challenge is you've got two

segments of the market. We've got new buildings, which are

generally designed well going forward in terms of

water usage. The challenge is

then in the refurbishment market. and in

the 25 million homes around the UK where

we've got old housing stock and we'll have an

enormous amount of sanitary ware, bathroom sanitary ware that's, to

Josh's point, leaky loose. How do we get through those?

How do we refurbish all of these properties? Because

Yeah because it is, I mean water conservation has become a

very big thing and as Josh said there's very little

building work in terms of new reservoirs going on. If you look at how the

population of London has expanded but as far as I'm aware they haven't built any

new reservoirs to help the situation. Not in the Thames area now. Yeah which

would seem to be a logical thing to do. You know you need to store some more, you need to put

it somewhere. So I think the focus is

going to be on how can companies, we're going to have to

come up with the solutions for this because Governments are

inherently short-term thinking due to the nature of politics so

they will probably generally pass the problem down to us which is why I mean I

think for Another kind of company probably

No, I mean at the end of the day this is a well-known, well-documented problem

in the UK because the water companies and government

are driving the demand for it as such. It's

Where sometimes there's more challenge in terms of water conservation than

Very much so, very much so. I'm not

sure how some of the sort of Far Eastern players

or elsewhere in the world would have developed this. We're obviously a family-owned company. It's

very much been a mission of Martin Dudley, our owner, to

drive this product through. And it's been financed by

him. There's no external financing on this product. It's all

internal. So I do wonder if others

would have achieved the same with the means they have compared

I mean, I suppose it's, I mean, looking forward, obviously,

quantum, do you see that the trends in sort of, from

a, from a let's go point of view, in terms of what's coming, we

all see the sort of how Japan handles toilets over there, where they're all singing

or dancing toilets. Do you see how, how sort

of do you see the development going forward in the UK? We're probably a lot more conservative, I

don't think. people want to walk in the toilet seat lifts off and all fancy lights

and things but um do you see a development in how the

uh sort of from a from your point of view how it's going to develop going

forward what do you think in terms of product development going

I think there's definitely the push not only for more water

efficient products, but also things that are made out of more sustainable materials as

well. So you're going past just that water usage to

how we use materials in other

ways, like for example, repeat materials where we're

taking plastic bottles and

recycling them and turning those into like shower trays.

Yeah, I think it's a really, really interesting partnership we've

got. We've I think going forward in the future, our

technology roadmap is very much aligned

to bringing sustainable products to market in

the bathroom space and. As

we referred to earlier, we have Propel Air, which is

for commercial markets. We have lots of water-saving tech in

our traditional Lesico bathroom ranges in WCs,

showers, taps, water-saving baths. So

we produce a water-saving brochure and we can help businesses

and new buildings designers to design

them as water-efficiently as they possibly can. And

Repeat Materials is just an extension of that, and there's many extensions in

our product roadmap going forward, but Repeat is manufactured from PET,

which is plastic bottles. And it's

fully circular and fully recycled at end of use. It's a completely unique

product. You can make the fabric of a bathroom, so

shower trays, shower floors, shower panels for

walls. Um, technical panels where pipe

work and electrics are, are embedded into the, into

the panel. It's lightweight, super durable, quick

to fit. It's, it's a game changer. We want to bring

these products to market, um, to change that

sustainability kind of that to, to create the

Yeah I mean it's interesting again driven by the manufacturer rather

than that because obviously we look at what the market is asking for but we drive

But like Thomas Dudley this is how good strong

organisations can achieve competitive

advantage through innovation and that innovation

finds its way into the marketplace and affects change

and that's what we're all here for, that's what we want to do, that's why we we

Managing the quality systems is quite, it can be a

challenge or do you find that sort of a very important driver for Lesico to

make sure that the quality, I mean Tom Studi has his own set of quality

requirements, I'm sure Lesico has the same. So

I'm at, you know, quality checks regularly to make sure that what you send out is

actually first rate because Lesico has a very good reputation in

the market, so I imagine that your quality controls must be quite high. Has

It has to be. And we meet and exceed all

British, European and global standards in terms of manufacturing and

bringing products to market. There's no other way that you can operate. And,

you know, we're producing nearly 7 million pieces of sanitary air

a year and taking that to market. So absolutely

quality. We've been our

key USPs in the marketplace. As you

mentioned, Mark, we've always been recognized as

a manufacturer of quality product. We've also been recognized as

a business that's got excellent service levels. And

we've also been recognized as a business that offers

great broader value in the whole kind of commercial sense.

And that's what we hang our hat on. will

Yeah I mean it's great to hear that obviously Tom Studley

has sort of joined with you on this project because it's two

companies that take quality and service as primary drivers

And two brands of two very important recognised brands

with with a long and successful history behind

That's it. It's this tilt towards the

water efficiency, water management of the washroom and bathroom space

that has been a particular appeal for Dudley with LESCO is

that and something that we think that's the next new

phase. Yes, we've gone to black and blue and different

colours, but the next phase is efficiency, definitely, because

we've got a growing population. The resources ain't

Yeah, I suppose you think about it, we're going to be at 80 million as a population pretty soon and

that's, you know, with the infrastructure we have, something's got to happen

and it's going to be driven by companies like Lessego and

Thomas Dudley in the bathroom way in order to drive those

changes through and to come up with the most sort of environmentally

I think there's only kind of two ways it can happen. We can either drive that

change or consumers can drive change. But for

consumers, for the groundswell of opinion, consumer opinion,

to actually affect change, there needs to be a significant education

piece. So we've all got a responsibility to educate

as much as we can. But that's a

I mean, we tend to sort of And it's difficult because

you can't really speak to everybody because it's such

a huge amount of sort of the market is so big. We

talk about things on social media as yourselves do and try and get the message across. So

I think it's all about just keep repeating the message you know keep repeating the and

raising people's awareness the fact that this amount of water is It's

an unknown sort of problem that only people

notice when, I mean, we were talking to some plumbers earlier, and

the amount of times they've come to do another job, and then the customer says, oh, any chance

you can have a look at my toilet while you're here, because it's leaking a little bit. And it could have

been leaking for months. And I'll just say, while you're here, can you have a look? Because

People just seem to ignore it. No, they don't realize that little trickle of

how big it actually is. It's substantially worse than a dripping tap,

but not quite as irritating as a dripping tap, funnily enough. So yeah,

it's a real big problem out there. And you will see a lot of the

water companies now making quite a big song and dance about this. It's getting a lot

It's having to because what we'll see is we'll see more and more pressure

on water resources over the coming years and

then it becomes an issue. What we want to

do is we want to effect change before it becomes that

issue where the water supply is being turned off in

certain periods of of, you know, seasonal kind

I mean, you tend to get a hosepipe bans at times of the year, you wouldn't expect

Yeah, if people realize the pressure on the water system at certain

Well, definitely in London 2012, they were hours away from declaring a drought in

the area. Imagine the political damage worldwide that would

have done. And that was 10 years ago. A lot's changed

in 10 years. So, yeah, it's an ever increasing

I suppose we will do a bit. Water companies, you know, they need to fix the underground leaks

because that's a huge and need to stop, you know, water going into the

sewage system and the sewage system going into the oceans. They need to do their bit.

We're doing our bit in terms of bringing out products that, you know, we've designed

to stop leaking. And I suppose the consumers now got to drive that as

Product choice and education around water usage

as well. Yeah. But I think most people are developing a

kind of, there's a habitual change to

people's water use. I think people recognize it. The question is

how far could we drive that change because it probably needs to go

It means a little change. I mean people, you know, how bad it was to leave your tap running while you're brushing

your teeth. I think most people don't do that now. It's little changes that

come around that make a bit of a difference and a little bit of a difference and

So I think that's also quite important on there. Just

for a final thing from Alessico's point of view, have you got anything that you're sort of looking at

over the next couple of years, anything you're excited about, anything that you want

Well, I think the big thing for us at the moment is bringing

repeat materials into the UK market as a sole UK distributor

for the product. It's really, really interesting. We've got

some really big plans this year in terms of events. We're

going to install a show in June with

yourselves, which we're really looking forward to. an

opportunity to meet lots of our customers and meet new potential customers. Our

product roadmap is continuing with some really interesting developments

both in water saving but also in product design. We've got new

short projection furniture coming to market, new sanitary wear designs, we've

got lots of really, really good stuff. So we're moving

quicker and quicker, bringing more and more fantastic product to market and

continuing with, you know, year on year record growth

in sales that we've we've seen for the past three or four years. So it's

I suppose Josh, over the next couple of years for Thomas Dudley product wise, I

Yes, very much our product very much around water efficiency, hygiene in

the public washroom, products for plumbers

basically, so products that make it easier or easier to fit or nicer

for the plumber to fit really. And there's an absolute, we're

getting some real momentum on it, particularly after Covid which was very disruptive for

everyone. we're getting some real momentum in some really interesting areas and

quantum is really the first iteration of various

I mean it's great to see two sort of well-known, well-respected brands

coming together to help solve a problem. I think that's a

roadmap for the future as well. I think you know a lot of companies should

be looking at doing so you know if there's a problem, two companies come together to fix it.

I think that's a brilliant way. I think we're pretty good as an industry,

the bathrooms industry, in terms of collaboration and

working together towards a common goal. And the Bathroom Manufacturers Association

plays a significant role in helping and supporting those

changes that we all want to see. And yeah, working together

with great businesses like Thomas Dudley is the

yep that'd be lesico.co.uk excellent lesico

l-e-c-i-c-o so it's uh yeah it's uh I

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Well, thank you very much

for your time. I really appreciate you coming down. I think it's been really great, really interesting. And

to everyone at home, if you enjoyed the podcast, please like and subscribe and

press any buttons that do all that around wherever they are. I'd

say thank you to my guests, Josh Bennett, to Sophie and Sean.

And until the next time, stay tuned for the next edition