Wednesday 30 August 2017

Wainwright opens Avonmouth for Bristol Doors Open Day

Wainwright’s innovative Avonmouth Asphalt production facility will be open to the public on Saturday, 9 September from 10am to 3pm as part of the Bristol Doors Open Day.

The event is an opportunity for businesses around Bristol to show people around, giving a rare insight into their activities. Avonmouth Asphalt is a cutting-edge plant that utilises the very latest green technology to enhance sustainability and optimise efficiency. Visitors will see the site’s environmentally friendly features, including solar panels and electric-vehicle charging points, as well as enjoying a tour of the asphalt production plant.

In addition, various displays will showcase the company’s surfacing equipment, as well as providing an insight into the way asphalt is produced. There will also be a display detailing Wainwright’s 125-year history, and explaining the contribution it makes to the local area.

Tours of the asphalt plant must be pre-booked, and the list is currently full. But Wainwright encourages visitors to come and enjoy the other attractions, including free refreshments.

To find out more about Bristol Doors Open Day, visit www.bristoldoorsopenday.org.uk.


Wainwright aims high on England’s steepest A-road

John Wainwright & Company Ltd recently completed a resurfacing job on one of the steepest roads in the country.
The A39 at Porlock Hill in West Somerset has a gradient of 1 in 4 (25 per cent). When Somerset County Council sought a contractor to resurface it, Wainwright leapt at the chance to test its mettle in a challenging environment.
“There’s routine road maintenance and then there’s routine maintenance on a hill with a 1 in 4 gradient,” said Councillor David Fothergill, Somerset County Council’s cabinet member for highways. “Clearly, this was no ordinary resurfacing job, and required specialist equipment as well as harnessing the expertise of our team.”
The specialist equipment in question included an integrated paver and an all-terrain forklift truck that came all the way from Germany.
Because of the steepness of the hill, which is on the edge of Exmoor National Park, safety barriers were erected to protect the workforce and nearby properties.
“Porlock Hill was certainly a challenging job for our team,” remarked Lee Seviour, Wainwright’s general manager, surfacing. “It involved two weeks of concerted effort, including one week of 24/7 closure to the road. The fact we finished on time and on budget is testament to a lot of hard work, careful organisation and forward planning.”

The material for the job was supplied from Wainwright’s Avonmouth asphalt production facility. It included Wainwright’s proprietary 14mm Elastermat PSV 68 Heavy Duty Dense Asphalt Surface Course, utilising a rubberised binder that was especially well-suited to the steep gradient on Porlock Hill.

Futures Foundation awards first grants

Following its launch in 2016, The Wainwright Futures Foundation has awarded its first grants to local causes.
The Foundation’s trustees met in March to sift the first swathe of applications. After subjecting them to rigorous assessment, they unanimously agreed on the projects that were most attuned to the Foundation’s guiding principles of encouraging environmental sustainability and community flourishing in Wainwright’s areas of operation.
Grants awarded so far include:
·         Support for a local church-led community project for disadvantaged elderly people and young parents in rural Somerset
·         Assistance to a local primary school for a sensory garden
·         Sponsorship of a local history trail to celebrate the culture of a local village
The trustees will meet every quarter to assess grant applications by reference to the Foundation’s criteria. Its funds are derived from sales of the Wainwright history book, published to celebrate the company’s 125th anniversary in 2016. Further monies come from a donation made by Wainwright as a proportion of its income from aggregate sales.

To seek support from the Wainwright Futures Foundation, applicants should contact Joni Stoker, PA to Peter Barkwill: joni.stoker@wainwright.co.uk / 01749 840 274.

Wainwright covers the bases

John Wainwright & Company Ltd has recently supplied asphalt to two major military bases in the South West, in a sign of its growing presence in the region.

The company, which officially opened its new £9m asphalt plant at Avonmouth, near Bristol, in August 2016, has been supplying asphalt from its headquarters near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, since the 1980s. With the launch of Avonmouth Asphalt, Wainwright has significantly grown the size of the area in which it operates.

This is seen in the recent supply of 652 tonnes of asphalt to resurface the internal roads at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. The 10mm SMA Surface Course 55PSV was produced at Avonmouth and supplied to Associated Asphalt, which was the surfacing contractor on the project.
“Supplying as far afield as Dartmouth is a great fillip for Wainwright,” commented the company’s sales director, Justin Thorner. “It reflects the reach of our business, which has been greatly enhanced by our major investment at Avonmouth.

“It’s also fantastic to be involved in a project as prestigious as this,” he continued. “The College is a totemic institution in the South West, where the navy trains all of its officers. So, for a long-established company like Wainwright, it’s a real honour to know that we’ve played a part in its ongoing success.”


HBM trials and commercial test prove successful



The trial and first commercial use of Wainwright’s range of new Hydraulically-Bound Materials (HBM) has proved successful.
The HBM trials got underway at Moons Hill in the autumn of 2016, when the product was laid over a 4,000m2 area, including 1,800m2 in a heavily trafficked part of the site where haulier and quarry plant often pass. Specialist Wirtgen mixing and laying machinery was used to safeguard quality.
Visual inspections in the months following the trials showed the materials to be standing up well to heavy use, while testing for moisture content, Particle Size Distribution (PSD), and strength and density yielded positive results.
“We’ve submitted the materials to extensive examination, including in-situ coring,” said business development manager Simon Lumkin. “The results so far have exceeded expectations, giving us every confidence in HBM as a product that we can add to Wainwright’s offering.”
The material also performed well in a recent commercial application, during which Wainwright successfully laid HBM for a resurfacing project at Portishead, Somerset, on behalf of Skanska. “The project involved a busy road near to the town’s marina,” said Simon. “The use of HBM proved highly effective, as well as enhancing the project’s environmental credentials.”
Hydraulically Bound Materials (HBM) utilise cementitious products that are bound as a result of a reaction with water. As a product, it offers a range of benefits:
·         The capacity to incorporate a high proportion of recycled materials in the mix
·         Lower carbon emissions compared with traditional base-layer materials
·         A sustainable product, which enhances a project’s green credentials
·         Lower costs, because lower-grade quarry or recycled materials are brought higher up the value chain
·         Laid using conventional paving equipment and plant, meaning minimal additional training for operatives
Wainwright has the capacity to create HBM to a variety of specifications, including the following standards:
C3/4                    
C5/6                    
C6/8                    
C8/10                  
C12/15 
RCC           

Growing fleet signals success

The number of trucks in Wainwright’s fleet has increased to 60, in a reflection of the company’s expanding footprint and the growing demand for its products.
One of the new additions to the line-up is an articulated lorry, owned by Dan Chubb at Factfirm haulage company. This will be used mainly to transport materials between Moons Hill and Avonmouth Asphalt, thereby reducing the road miles needed to carry tonnages between locations.

Wainwright's new V8 Scania articulated lorry
“When I took over the role of Transport Manager in 2014, Wainwright had 24 trucks,” explained Sales Director Justin Thorner. “The fact this figure has gone up by 36, and now includes an impressive V8 Scania articulated lorry, says something powerful about the company’s development in the intervening three years. Wainwright is going places – literally and metaphorically.”