The Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) recently caught up with David Procter, co-founder of Procter & Street in our latest Industry Interview.
Read David’s full interview below.
Q. Can you tell us about your career and how you arrived at establishing your own business?
A. At 19 I was an apprentice footballer for Preston North End. The dream of becoming a professional player came to an abrupt end when I was sacked for being too slow, and letting the team down once too often. However, the experience gained from working under managers who had won European competitions and managed at World Cups definitely helped me in building my career, and even more so now I’m running my own business.
After I quit football, I concentrated on my university degree. As part of the course, I completed a sandwich year with Carillion Civil Engineering, which after being awarded a first-class BSc Hons led to over 10 years working on some amazing schemes from 500k to £313m. I covered JVs, D&Bs. EA, Roads, Bridges and Smart Motorways, all whilst living out of caravans up and down the country. From Carillion, I moved to Graham Construction where I experienced working for a family-owned business, which gave an entirely different perspective. And from there onto Galliford Try where I lead frameworks, their Local Authority North business, and work winning.
During Covid 19 I became frustrated with the poor service I was receiving from consultants in the work winning space and the way contractors (as the last party involved in the project lifecycle) were often left to pick up the pieces following poor advice given to clients earlier on in the project. I was convinced there was a gap in the market for a high quality, construction focused consultancy which offered a cradle to grave solution for contractors and clients. I pitched my business idea to Gareth Street, who I’d worked for at Kingsway Business Park in 2007. Together we mapped out a business plan that we believed would deliver the vision and joined forces. We both took the plunge and handed in our notice to our respective employers. Procter & Street Ltd was born.
Q: Can you tell more about your Construction Opportunity Finder, and what services it offers to SMEs?
A. Whilst establishing Procter & Street it became apparent that there was a need for a bespoke opportunity finding service which the larger opportunity/market intelligence finders couldn’t provide. We spent over 6 months developing and trialling systems before rolling out our own Construction Opportunity Finder Service. Construction Opportunity Finder was launched in 2023 and offers: A service which searches the market for project/framework opportunities and tenders which are bespoke to our customers’ needs; Saves our customers time and money in creating a pipeline of work so they don’t have to; Provides partner advice and support on growth and bidding from construction professionals who have won and delivered work; Guides Customers through the bid process producing quality submissions and advice on costs.
Q. How much importance is put on innovation within your business and in what ways can it enable change?
A. We are constantly looking at our processes and looking to drive innovation, to ensure the success and sustainability of our business. We understand the challenges and costs associated with tendering for work, and pride ourselves on providing tailored honest advice to better inform our customers on where to best spend their money. We invest back into the business to ensure our systems are cost effective allowing us to pass that saving back onto the customer.
Q. In terms of funding for roads, what do you think works well and what needs to be improved?
A. I’d like to see better procurement of contractor advice at an ECI stage. This will make funding and feasibility more accurate and will result in the last party onsite having a say from the start. It’s at this stage in the process that the greatest influence on cost savings/cost certainty can be achieved. We’re also heavily impacted by budgets, politics, end of year spend, and too much bureaucracy; which all contributes to time and costs. I’d like to see rapid project gateways where the time from concept to build is much shorter.
Q. How important is the role of LCRIG in driving change within the sector?
A. We have worked with LCRIG for a number of years and have attended a number of innovation events. We have seen the success of such events first hand and can see that LCRIG allows the industry to come together, encourages sharing of ideas and drives innovation forward towards positive change in the highway sector.
Q. How do you ensure your values are brought out through the company’s activities?
A. We are driven by data to inform decisions. We are constantly looking at the facts, and are continually measuring ourselves against the objectives we set out to achieve. Being small and agile means that we’re prepared to have difficult discussions and challenge ourselves on a daily basis to improve. Our model isn’t about volume, it’s based on a team of exceptional people providing exceptional service, the service we would have liked to receive when working for the large corporates. We ask all our customers to complete a feedback questionnaire. I’m proud to say, the stats speak for themselves: 78% return customers; 9.6/10 scored on average in our customer satisfaction survey; 100% business growth year1-2 and set for further 100% increase Y2-3.
Q: Finally, what are your aspirations for the future of COF, where do you hope to be in the next 12 months?
We are dedicated to helping SMEs grow. We know so many SMEs who deliver towards the social value and circular economy but are too often sub-contractors on small projects which they could deliver as the Principal Contractor. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting a message from an SME advising us that the scheme we found and then helped them tender for has been won. Not only does this result in securing jobs in their local community, but also helps them to drive their business forwards. We also hear from so many SMEs who are looking to grow, who’ve had bad experiences. It’s a great feeling to be able to help them succeed.
To find out more about Procter and Street, visit their website here.