Dear Tony
9th October 2012

Further to Nick Dutton’s letter last week, I would suggest that the door panel market is still alive and doing very well, thank you. As the managing director of Solidor Group, which includes Solidor and Nice Door Panels, perhaps I can put forward an unbiased view.

The market for entrance doors is relatively buoyant and at Solidor we have experienced unprecedented growth for our second generation composite doors. Similarly Nice Door Panels are enjoying growth in no small part to the development of CoolSkin™ technology in door panels. Over the last 6 years, this has proven to eliminate the problems of first generation door panels, as our customers have enjoyed.

I’m very well aware of what Door Panels were doing as a business and they cannot be used as a barometer of the door panel sector. Their product was widely regarded as inferior to the vast majority of other door panels due to the use of dated materials and they also operated a very aggressive and ultimately unsustainable pricing strategy. I believe that these two business fundamentals are the key ingredients that sent them under.

Consumers expect choice and for the foreseeable future I see both door panels and composite doors providing different solutions for the replacement door market. The door panel sector has evolved, with better products and the same is beginning to happen in the composite door market.

It’s now a time for innovation in the entrance door market, rather than purporting misguided information with a tenuous link to the photographic industry. Moreover, at Solidor and Nice Door Panels we’re not the only ones with this balanced opinion.

Yours sincerely

Gareth Mobley
Managing Director
Solidor Group