A Midland galvanising firm has received a timely boost from the economic downturn after a subsidiary company landed three big construction contracts.
Worksop Galvanizing, in Nottinghamshire, which is part of the Willenhall-based Wedge Group, has won a deal to galvanize more than 1,000 tonnes of structural steel for Nottingham-based steel-frame buildings specialist company Caunton Engineering.
The first contract will see it supply was around 450 tonnes for a new three-storey car park at Loughborough University.
A further 320 tonnes was used to rebuild a large-scale vegetable-growing facility at Atherstone in Warwickshire.
A new railway maintenance shed near Liverpool accounted for the remaining 270 tonnes of the deal agreed.
Worksop Galvanizing, which employs 75 staff, has the largest hot-dip galvanizing bath in the UK, measuring 21 metres long.
It is one of 14 plants around the country belonging to the Wedge Group, which has more than 800 workers group-wide.
Other Wedge Group plants regularly transport large-scale steel items to Worksop for galvanizing, such as structural beams for new buildings and sports stadiums.
Paul Robinson, Worksop Galvanizing’s commercial manager, said: “Because of its size and long-standing experience, the Worksop plant is ideally suited to handling large quantities of structural steelwork. Last year we galvanized around 40,000 tonnes.
“We were delighted that Caunton Engineering selected us to galvanize this large volume of steel for three important and high-profile building projects and especially at a time when the construction industry has been affected by the economic situation.”
The Wedge Group, which can trace its origins in Willenhall back to the 1850s, has two more of its subsidiary companies in the West Midlands – BE Wedge at Stafford Street, Willenhall, and Edward Howell Galvanizers on Watery Lane, in Wednesfield.
