Precast concrete firm expands on fantastic foundations
A Shropshire precast concrete company has celebrated the start of its sixth year in business by almost doubling the size of its production and storage facilities.
Telford-based Elite Precast Concrete has taken on a second unit at Kingsland Industrial Estate, Halesfield, on the back of an incredibly successful 2012, which saw the company double its sales compared to 2011 following a series of significant contract wins.
The expansion has seen the firm take on an extra 23,000 ft2 of manufacturing, workshop, and office space, giving it a total capacity of around 48,000 ft2, as well as an additional 1.5 acre yard, with the move a crucial building block in the business’s future growth plans, which includes increasing its presence in international markets such as Holland, Germany and the Middle East.
Elite Precast Concrete was founded in January 2008 by Directors Richard Doody and Alan Johnson, and now employs 38 staff at its extended site, which the firm moved to from its original base in Much Wenlock during the summer of 2010. Over its first five years in operation, the company has grown to become the UK’s market leader in the manufacturing of interlocking ‘V’ and ‘Lego’ precast concrete blocks, which are used by local authorities and recycling businesses nationwide to create sturdy waste storage bays. The blocks are also used in sectors such as road and rail transport, where they act as a robust form of embankment retention, and hospitality, outdoor events, and construction, where they are utilised as kentledge – a temporary counterweight – to hold scaffolding, security fencing, and marquees in place.
“It’s very fitting that we move into our extended facilities in the same month we celebrate our first five years in business,” Owen Batham, Sales and Marketing Director of Elite Precast Concrete, explained. “Thanks to everyone’s exceptionally hard work, we now have the rock-solid foundations in place to capitalise and expand our business even further. The last 12 months have been a particularly successful period, which even saw 20,000 of our blocks used as kentledge to hold almost 30km of perimeter fencing in place across 60 of the venues used in last summer’s Olympics, including the Olympic Park and Stadium in Stratford.
“One of the more remarkable aspects of our growth over the last year is that turnover has significantly increased despite many of our customers coming from the construction industry, which of course, has been one of the hardest hit by the economic downturn.”
In addition to its turnover triumph and facilities expansion, the last year has seen Elite Precast Concrete team up with finance broker Kata Crushing & Recycling Finance to launch a first of its kind in the industry package that enables customers to buy interlocking blocks using competitively priced finance, while the firm’s environmentally-friendly production processes and use of advanced online sales techniques saw it scoop the Innovator category at the inaugural West Midlands Business Masters Awards.
