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• Smiths Bletchington-100 years at Enslow
• Tony Gillam
• SAFED
• Nigel Bailey-an announcement
• Bagging Trailer: Adding Value All Round
• End of an Era: Volvo Succeeds Foden
• Mini Tipper

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Smiths Bletchington-100 years at Enslow

Smiths Bletchington has now been trading for over 100 years, having been founded around the turn of the twentieth century. Over this period our association with the village of Bletchington, situated just a few miles north of Oxford, has at least, in part, contributed to our name. 

                                                 

In fact our Head office is situated just outside Bletchington on the road to Woodstock, at the hamlet of Enslow, near the Rock of Gibraltar pub, which many years ago was run by the Smith family under a tenancy.  And this year marks the 100th anniversary of our occupation of the Enslow site, the business having moved here shortly after it was established.

We think that milestones of this sort reflect the continuity, stability and tradition of our family business which has been supported by many different parties over the years. Our thanks go out to all past and present customers, suppliers, employees and those in the local community who have made, and continue to make, the business a success.

Tony Gillam:  Long Service Continuing

Tony Gillam, our longest serving driver, reached his 65th birthday (during November 2007), which is the company’s normal retirement date.

However, not content with his 41 years service (he joined Smiths in March 1966 even before England won the World Cup!) Tony asked to extend his employment for a further year under procedures introduced by the recent Age Discrimination legislation.  The company were delighted to accept under the same procedures.

Who knows? Maybe Tony will ask to stay on even longer and we’ll consider it under the same legislation.So the new laws have worked to the advantage of both parties, and we look forward to at least another year’s solid service from Tony.

SAFED

SAFED stands for ‘safe and fuel efficient driving’ and is a Government initiative (via DEFRA and the DfT) funded by the Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF)

The scheme provides practical advice through in-cab driver development and classroom based theory to promote best practise in safe and fuel efficient driving. Smiths have joined the scheme, with Paul Needle, transport manager undertaking a 2 day course to become an in-house driver trainer. To date 75% of our LGV drivers are trained with the remainder due to be completed by the summer of 2008.

Benefits expected from the scheme in respect of our LGV fleet include:

• reduced vehicle accidents and incidents
• improved fuel consumption
• reduced carbon footprint
• reduced gear changes leading to fewer mechanical breakdowns
• improved driving standards and hazard perception
• improved road safety
• improved working conditions for the driver
• improved health and safety in the workplace

The company also see the scheme as one initiative to help deal with our statutory obligations regarding Corporate Social Responsibility and as a positive re-investment in the Industry of funds generated by the Aggregate levy.

Nigel Bailey-an announcement

It is with regret that owing to his continued serious illness, working in conjunction with Mrs Kim Bailey who is now able to act on his behalf, the Directors of Smith & Sons (Bletchington) Ltd have accepted Nigel’s resignation from the Company with effect from 6 January 2008.

Many of you will know that Nigel had served the Company for nearly 35 years, having joined at the start of March 1973 from Kingston Minerals, making him one of the Company’s longest serving employees.  Nigel joined Smiths as a sales representative progressing to contracts manager overseeing large contracts such as our involvement in the development of the American airbase at Upper Heyford.  He was also instrumental in the development of Smiths Construction and our Plant hire section, later on becoming Sales manager for the Group.  One of Nigel’s biggest, and most significant contributions to the Company was his involvement in developing Gill Mill Quarry in the late 80’s.  In 1995 Nigel became a Director of Smith & Sons (Bletchington) Ltd with responsibility for production, subsequently overseeing a number of large projects and quarry developments.

We would like to take this opportunity in thanking him for his valued input to the Company.  His presence has been, and will continue to be, missed and I am sure you will join us in wishing his family all the best for the future.  For those of you who have visited Nigel from time to time, you may be interested to know that before Christmas he was moved from the JR to the Oxford Centre for Enablement at the Nuffield Hospital in Headington, where his wife Kim and son Mark still encourage and welcome visitors.

NB: As of April 2008 Nigel has been moved to the Close Care Home at Burcot, between Abingdon and Berinsfield. Coming from Oxford on the A4074, at the Berinsfield roundabout take the A415 towards Abingdon for about half a mile-the home is on the left next to the Chequers pub. Visitors are still welcome.

Bagging Trailer: Adding Value All Round

We are always looking at ways of improving service to our customers, as well as adding value to the business.  More efficient use of our resources also helps to reduce our carbon footprint.

Currently we have a number of valued customers who take our aggregate in bagged form, mostly for resale at their own retail or wholesale outlets.

Not only is bagged aggregate produced on site at Gill Mill gravel pit, in conjunction with our JV partner AWBS, but we have now also invested in a flat bad trailer to facilitate delivery of bags to our customers.  The trailer will be hauled by our artic units more commonly seen pulling bulk trailers.

The flat bed is parked, unhitched and loaded at the bagging plant at Gill Mill.  When one of our artics returns to the gravel pit, swapping between bulk trailer and flat bed is a simple and quick operation and allows an extra load to be delivered in an otherwise ‘dead’ slot in the day’s schedule.  Not only do we enjoy extra efficiency from the practice, we are also helping to get more out of an increasingly valuable haulage resource – good for the customer and the environment.

End of an Era: Volvo Succeeds Foden

Up until this month (November 2007), the Smiths fleet of 38 tipper lorries had been exclusively Foden.  Actually we do run one ageing ERF but that vehicle’s genes are so similar to a Foden it makes little difference.

Our relationship with the Foden marque goes right back to the company’s earliest days when we operated their steam powered lorries.  So it was a great shame when Foden’s parent company, Paccar, of the USA, announced the end of the marque in 2006 and we took delivery of our last ever Fodens in Autumn last year.

So the process has began to look at other marques to replace the Foden – and the quality they were able to provide allied to vehicles of the ideal specification for the work we undertake.

Whether we will ever return to a single marque fleet is uncertain, and depends on the long term trial of several vehicles.  What we can say is that we have been impressed with the alternatives out there in the market and have orders in place for vehicles across several different marques.

Just recently we have taken delivery of our first ever Volvo 8 wheeler tipper.  Initial reports are good, and the vehicle has caused quite a stir amongst employees.

In the next few months we will be taking delivery of vehicles from MAN and DAF (also a Paccar company) as well as further Volvos.

But whatever marque, rest assured the vehicles will be maintained to our normal high standard, look the part in our famous green livery and be used to continue our quality service to customers.

Mini Tipper

A new addition to the Smiths fleet of lorries!!

This mini tipper has a carrying capacity of 7.5 tonnes of quality Smiths products, nothing new there you may say. The clever thing is that the load can be split. Two different aggregates in one delivery!

The front compartment can carry up to 3.5 tonnes with the rear compartment carrying up to 4.0 tonnes without the fear of contamination.

The benefits are many fold, but the one that should interest you is that it can save you money. One delivery of two products; a small lorry involves one trip - rather than two journeys in a large truck and having to pay for those two trips!

Being slightly smaller than our main fleet of lorries, it can deliver into narrow access, like small lanes, driveways. You can check all the dimensions of the lorry on our Lorry sizes webpage.

Another great advantage, which Smiths have always taken extremely seriously, is the fact that the one delivery aspect reduces the amount of road use by our lorries, which in turn reduces the amount of carbon emissions thereby helping to create a healthier environment.

Smiths helping both our customers and the environment.

Smiths’ new mini tipper with the famous green corporate livery has already begun delivery aggregates around the Oxfordshire countryside and beyond. And with its four drop-down sides the mini tipper makes for easy unloading with a fork lift of palleted aggregates or by hand of bagged sand, shingle etc.

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