A Coventry firm has won a top Midlands award after creating 60 jobs as a result of its expansion plans.
Whites Utilities on Colliery Lane, Exhall, will provide Severn Trent Water with a rehabilitation service for its underground pipe lines in south Birmingham as subcontractor to support services firm Enterprise.
The five year deal, which is one of the biggest won by the company, will increase its workforce to 160 by the middle of the year. And more jobs are promised when they launch a subsidiary company for the domestic block and tarmac market next month.
Its success has led to it becoming the first Business Achiever named by Allied Irish Bank (GB) and The Hub, a resource centre designed to boost local industry.
Whites Utilities outperformed more than 220 other firms on the Exhall industrial estates of Bayton Road, Black Horse, Coventry Road and Grovelands to win the accolade.
Rob Godfrey, programme manager of The Hub which is based in Bayton Road, said: "Results like that makes it the
natural choice for our first quarterly award."
The Hub and Allied Irish Bank (GB) presented managing director Darren White with a bottle of bubbly and cheque for £100 which he has donated to the Mary Ann Evans Hospice at the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton.
The company was established 40 years ago.
When Darren took over the business from his father four years ago there were six employees; the multi-utility contractor now employs 50 people at
Exhall, 50 in Nottingham, and turnover has risen by 1000 per cent.
Staff development has been a key strategy in the overall business development programme. Training has been designed to provide employees with measures against which to judge themselves.
Mr White said: "It's now a specialised industry that demands competent, skilled operators.
"We have plant and machinery worth tens of thousands of pounds and work in close proximity to the public. It's in everybody's interest to develop our personnel to their highest potential."
