Cara Mackay, managing director of Gillies and Mackay Ltd, based near Errol in Perthshire, has had to raise prices for new orders by 17.5% and ask existing customers who have paid deposits for orders already on the books to voluntarily contribute an additional 5% price increase due the soaring price of timber.

Currently, the business is booked up until March 2022, however, the cost of raw materials has already doubled and is expected to continue to rise until at least next summer due to a number of factors including stockpiling due to Brexit uncertainty, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the housing boom in China and the USA.

Now the business is having to make tough decisions in order to survive and protect the jobs of its 18 members of staff.

Ms Mackay said: “Last week I talked at length with our key suppliers to get the real picture of what was happening right now, and what was still to come. Since then we have done everything we can think of to try and absorb those increases ourselves, but with costs expected to continue going up, our accountant insisted that the only way we could survive was to increase our prices and go so far as to ask existing customers to contribute where they can.

“It is heartbreaking to have to do that, but 18 people and their families rely on us and protecting those jobs is what is most important - we know that this will pass and we want to still be here when it does.”

Now Ms Mackay is appealing to the Scottish Government and local authorities to step in and support businesses like hers to weather this storm which has been brought about through no fault of their own.

She said: “Over the past 18 months or so, there has been tremendous pressure on businesses and the Government has done its best to help, and we appreciate that. However there are also businesses like ours which have not been adversely affected by Covid from a sales perspective, but instead we’re being blindsided by these soaring materials costs due to the adverse effects of the pandemic and other crises like Brexit.

“I’m not looking for miracles, but I know if the right attention is brought to our industry from the right people we could get ahead of this and give help where it’s really needed. My main concern is our governments are too slow to react and that could mean major fatalities for manufacturing and construction sector wide.”