Sales at Travis Perkins were down 20 per cent for the first half of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.

The UK's largest building materials group, which has stores in Gloucester, Stroud, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and across the Forest of Dean, reported a turnover of £2.78bn, compared with £3.48bn last year. Like-for-like sales in its general merchanting business across the second quarter of the year were down 42.8 per cent, as reported by Construction News.

The company announced last month that it was set to close 165 branches, around eight per cent of its business, with a loss of 2,500 jobs.

Travis Perkins includes more than 20 businesses, including the Wickes DIY chain and Toolstation. Both brands benefited from strong DIY sales during lockdown, as people filled their time with home improvements.

The company's builders' merchants arm remains the hardest hit by the virus, but it said operations have been recovering well in recent weeks. Travis Perkins said it was starting to see signs of recovery with the repair, maintenance and improvement and infrastructure markets, which it said were proving to be more robust than the new housebuilding and commercial construction markets.