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Construction materials manufacturer Acheson & Glover has announced it is investing £7million at its manufacturing facilities in Toome, County Antrim, as the first stage of an ambitious expansion programme aimed at doubling its turnover to £100 million by 2012.
The expansion at Toome is designed to help the family owned firm meet rapidly growing demand from across the UK and Ireland for its extensive range of paving products. Site clearance work has already begun for a new 6,000 sq m factory to enable Acheson & Glover to boost production of TerraPave Boulevard a modern, flat topped paving block used widely in retail schemes.
In addition, the company has already added a high tech production line for its natural aggregate paving products. Launched six years ago, the range has rapidly developed into a multi-million pound success story for the company with a growing number of architects selecting it for prestigious landscaping contracts on both sides of the Irish Sea.
In the past year alone, sales increased by 38 per cent, thanks in part to the product being featured in a garden awarded a gold medal by the Royal Horticultural Society in England.
Acheson and Glover believes the Toome expansion will play an important role in its plans to increase company turnover from around £45 million currently to £100 million within the next five years.
The firm also anticipates significant growth in sales of a number of other innovative products it manufactures at its five local production facilities.
These include the Anchor retaining wall system which has just won approval to be used to build embankments in road schemes across the UK. The first major road infrastructure project to feature the innovative system is the M1/Westlink widening scheme currently underway in south Belfast.
Acheson & Glover also anticipates that sales of a third product - known as Novabrik - are set to grow substantially. The mortarless brick cladding system is proving increasingly popular for housing projects and commercial schemes in the face of widespread labour shortages and rising construction costs.
Because the product doesn’t require mortar or conventional bricklaying skills to install, it is cheaper to build than conventional brick walls and it can be put up much faster and in all weather conditions.
Acheson & Glover’s managing director Raymond Acheson is confident the firm will achieve its ambitious growth targets.
“Over the past five years or so, we have signed two key joint ventures with American companies and we have invested heavily in product design and research and development.
“These activities have put as at the forefront of modern methods of construction techniques within the industry and we are now seeing those efforts come to fruition.
“We have also invested heavily in our sales operations on both sides of the Irish Sea and we will shortly open a new GB sales headquarters in Birmingham.
“For all of these reasons, we believe we’ll be well on the way to hitting our growth targets by the time we celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary in 2010,” adds Acheson.
