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UK Metals is a fifth generation
family business, which has been established as a metal recycler for 141
years and is based on a 7.2 acre site.
In 1861 UK Metals opened for
scrap metal and 19 years later his nephew and
namesake moved where he purchased cast iron,
steel, non-ferrous metals, rags, bones and rabbit skins. The bones where
used to make soap for Knights Castile and the rabbit skins went to the
London
Furriers.
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1963
started
a modernisation programme with the purchase of automated balers and
hydraulic shears, which were purchased in the USA. The business
continued to grow as the benefits of high productivity levels revealed
their financial benefits. By 1976 the two brothers took the decision to
purchase a fragmentiser, from their namesakes in the USA – UK Metals
Fragmentiser, this was only the fifth plant in operation in Europe. The
UK Metals family continued with this market leaders approach to metal
recycling increasing productivity and quality and capturing new markets
as a benefit.
Demolition had been an area that
developed and famous sites such as London Gas Works
(London Dome Site) and their involvement in power station demolition was
seen at; Stourbridge, Bedford, Liverpool, Croydon and Great Barford.
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As the business
continued to grow finding material to feed this development
required diversification and scrap from The Ark Royal and Air-Ships where
just two of the famous areas of growth.
Factory contracts where developed with
total waste solutions being deployed by the UK Metals family into the
automobile industry as early as 1954 and proof of the companies commitment
to offering competitive and effective service contracts is the fact that
they remain today the holders of that contract some 48 years later.
In 1970 the chairman started at the current site as a baler
operator and crane driver. In the coming years the management team
continued the development with the purchase of newer and bigger shear,
fragmentiser, cranes and lorries. The contract side of the business grew
with the additions of more motor works contracts. Two more businesses where
purchased in Newport, South Wales to service the Local Steel Works and
development of non-ferrous metals. The second was the purchase of an
operation in Rochester, Kent to develop markets abroad with their own
export, shipping facility.
By the mid seventies the UK steel industry
led by BSC reduced its approved suppliers list form 500 to 10. UK Metals
were founder members of Federated Scrap, who were one of the top ten.
Federated was made up of six companies spread through England, Scotland and
Wales; UK Metals, Thomas Hill, Berrys, Arnott & Young, Marple & Gillot and
Daltons. This federation of industries worked for 8 – 10 years, when BSC
returned to a purchasing policy of diversification.
The business continues today basing its
activity on the principles set by generations of UK Metals metal recyclers,
“Investing in the future to promote development and growth, without
devaluing the service to our customers” |
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