In the past week or so, I’ve managed to get out and about to meet some of our members, both on the client side and contracting. There is always new knowledge to be gained from the supply side whether they are recent ‘start-ups’ or longstanding organisations that have been around for many years.
It was a delight to spend some time with Steve Williams, Chairman of Henry Williams and Son who is keeping this family business going which has been passed on through the generations since the mid 1800’s. I don’t believe there will be many contractors able to boast such longevity and still claim it as a family run business – a truly remarkable feat. Steve and his colleagues, Sean Martin (Managing Director) and Adrian Bunkle (Business Development Manager) were able to show me around their site at Wrexham and demonstrate how they were embracing the latest technologies to improve their processes, reduce carbon and generally drive their business forwards.
I already had some familiarity with the company as they are one of twelve contractors on Project Amber which is a framework open to all of our members on a ‘free to access’ basis. What I didn’t know however, was the breadth of the service and expertise that Henry Williams and Son could offer by undertaking surfacing works (machine, hand lay and patching), civil engineering projects, fencing works and asphalt preservation mainly using their own directly employed workforce and specialist owned plant.
I was particularly impressed with their ‘Target Dressing’ which is applied only to those areas that need it saving time, cost and carbon. In essence an in-cab video/computer allows the operator to select the defective sections of carriageway in advance of the combination sprayer. The surface dressing is then applied to those selected areas as the vehicle passes over them – simple but very effective, avoiding unnecessary work. Equally cost effective and carbon friendly was Retread, a shallow depth insitu pavement recycling process which is being favoured by many clients as an alternative to more traditional solutions.
Being the owner of an electric car, it was great to see they had several EV charging points, one of which I was able to use, and later this year they aim to achieve carbon neutral status through a switch over to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) for fleet which will complement their existing biomass boiler and photovoltaic system already installed on site, making this a truly sustainable business. So, in my view Henry Williams and Son are definitely keeping up with the times, if not staying ahead of the curve. It’s a culmination of their service offerings, the obvious respect for the environment and the company culture which has seen their turnover double in the past 3 years.
It’s not just about what we do, but how we go about it.