Multi-million pound factory extension launched
Construction products group Naylor Industries has opened its £5m factory extension to produce larger diameter pipes which will carry big volumes of surface water and help protect Britain against flooding.
HRH the Duke of Kent yesterday officially opened the facility for the Barnsley-based company which has installed a high-tech production line to manufacture large diameter plastic drainage pipes for its customers across the UK in the infrastructure, agriculture and utilities markets.
Founded in 1890, Naylor originally manufactured clay pipes but expanded into plastic in 2000. Edward Naylor took over as chief executive in 1993 when Naylor was loss-making and had sales of £12m. Naylor’s turnover broke through the £50m barrier for the first time this year and today employs 400 people at six sites across the UK.
Edward Naylor said: “Every year we seem to be seeing once-in-a-lifetime weather events. We often have frequent torrential rain now and therefore we saw a gap in the market to produce larger pipes and protect Britain from flooding.
“As it rains more heavily, we need larger capacity pipelines to deal with storm water.”
The pipes are too big for international trade and so will be transported across the UK by wide-load lorry loads. Key staff from the business travelled to Germany recently to learn the skills needed to operate the larger equipment. Naylor said it was imperative to invest in staff and that this expansion and investment was a great way for them to up-skill.
In 2008, the company completed a £4m investment in its Cawthorne production facilities to manufacture 600mm diameter pipe, helping the company to accelerate out of the last recession.
The Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership provided a £615,000 grant to support the latest project, which creates 20 further jobs on the Cawthorne site.
It also has a successful consumer business, Yorkshire Flowerpots, which are guaranteed frost-proof. HRH Duke of Kent saw these in production yesterday and will receive personalised pots in the comings days.
Every year, the Naylor group manufactures enough pipe to stretch around the world, twice.
The Duke of Kent had a thorough tour of the factory with Edward Naylor and met with staff members and apprentices. Naylor said: “Queen Victoria was on the throne when my great-grandfather founded Naylor Industries.
“It was an honour to show the Duke of Kent around our facilities.”
Naylor said British manufacturing has a “bright future” and that Naylor Industries trades internationally and has exported pipes onto every continent and into 65 overseas markets.
He said: “If you use the best available technology and you are efficient in your raw material sourcing and processes, the fact that your unit cost of labour is more expensive than overseas competitors is mitigated by the fact that they have to pay a lot of money to ship their products across the world.”
Naylor made the investment decision before Britain voted to leave the European Union. Naylor said that the Brexit decision had caused a slightly turbulent market but that this was something they were confident over of overcoming.
“Although this has introduced some uncertainty into our key markets, we hope in due course to get our share of the big infrastructure projects which are in the pipeline such as the high-speed rail, smart motorway and nuclear power projects,” he added.
