Whilst the pandemic put paid to the milestone anniversary celebrations planned by Naylor Industries last year, the company remains in resilient mood despite the disruption caused by Covid-19. PBM reveals more.
In 2020, Barnsley-based Naylor Industries celebrated its 130th year. And the company, which was founded as a clay pipe manufacturer by George Wilfred Naylor in 1890, remains in family hands under CEO Edward Naylor, the fourth generation of the family to head up the business.
Founded in the West Yorkshire village of Denby Dale, the firm retains a Yorkshire focus today with three of its six factories being in the Barnsley area. And while the Naylor Group still manufactures clay pipes, recent decades have seen the business diversify, launching a range of plastic and concrete products and carrying out a multi-million pound programme of investment in its manufacturing capabilities. Business turnover now exceeds £55m and the company employs some 400 people.
Edward Naylor, Group Chief Executive, commented: “We’re very proud of our history as very few businesses make it through to the fourth generation. We had hoped to have a party to celebrate the 130-year landmark — but that went the way of the pandemic…”
Postponed party aside, the business describes the impact of Covid as being “disruptive but not disastrous”. It remained open to supply essential infrastructure projects throughout the pandemic whilst its own development work was maintained, with the business’ older equipment being modernised and additional plant being installed to increase capacity and broaden the product portfolio.
Recent weeks, for example, have seen the launch of MetroPave — a new cost-effective grass grid product for domestic applications — in addition to enabling works kick-starting the expansion of the company’s main Plastic Extrusion hall.
Clay Pipe manufacturing remains important to Naylor and Densleeve, Naylor’s push fit range is widely used in DN100, 150, 225 & 300mm sizes, with a range of complementary fittings available to support stockists who tend to carry pipes and fittings in all four sizes to serve local contractors and to back up their direct to site supply of volume business. Also available is the flexible Band-Seal coupling range, which permits pipes of different sizes and materials to be interconnected.
Naylor’s Plastic Pipe range, meanwhile, primarily comprises corrugated single and twin wall HDPE pipe, with Land Drain, Twin Wall Drain and Twin Wall Duct being the most important product groups.
Land Drain coils are black single wall corrugated pipes used primarily in agricultural applications. Various coil lengths are offered and sizes include 60, 80, 100 and 160mm diameter; 80 and 100mm coils are particularly widely stocked.
Twin Wall Drain is black double wall corrugated pipe available perforated or unperforated in 6m lengths. Pipes are available from 100mm to 1050mm diameter with yellow (gas) and blue (water) pipe available for specific industry applications.
Finally, Twin Wall Ducting is for carrying a wide range of service and utility cables. Ducting is supplied in coils and sticks and is offered in a wide variety of colours — black for utilities, yellow and blue for gas and water ducting, orange for street lighting and traffic signals, green for CCTV and purple for motorway communications.
The most common sizes are from 50-300mm, and the references tend to include the internal and external diameters — eg: 50/63mm duct is a 2” duct with an inside diameter of 50mm and an external diameter of 63mm. This — together with 94/110mm (4”) — is a particularly common size. In addition, Naylor offers a range of accessories and ancillaries including draw cord and structural and non-structural duct (access) boxes.
Whilst most of Naylor’s output is structured wall (corrugated), the company also offers solid wall product: smooth bore polyethylene (PE) and General Purpose (GP) duct.
A wide range of fittings and accessories is available across all Naylor’s ranges and it also offers a quick and flexible fabrications service, which allows catch pits and special fittings to be speedily made to order.
Recent years have seen Naylor launch a complementary range of Environmental/Water Management products, including grass grids for domestic, commercial and HGV applications and a plastic attenuation crate.
Mixed deliveries
Over the last few months, under the supervision of Sales Director Emma Burkinshaw (née Kilner) and MD Richard Edwards (pictured), Naylor has been working on integrating its individual product teams with the objective of being able to offer a ‘one stop shop’ service to mixed and heavyside merchants.
Orders for Clay and Plastic pipes, Band-Seals and ancillaries can all now be combined in a single transaction and in a single delivery. Most recently, Naylor has recognised that many of its pipe merchants also had a requirement for concrete bridging lintels, but were unable to purchase in the quantities needed to make up a carriage paid load. As a result of a tie-in with sister company Naylor Concrete Products since February, these too can be combined with pipe orders.
The final word goes to Naylor MD Richard Edwards who commented: “We’ve grown considerably over recent years but have worked hard to retain the personal service which you would expect from a family business.”
With industry forecasts predicting a buoyant post pandemic period for the civils and infrastructure markets, Naylor looks well placed for a period of continued growth.
For more information on Naylor Industries’ full range of pipes, drainage products, concrete lintels and more, go to: https://www.naylor.co.uk/
This story was featured in the April issue of PBM. See the full issue by clicking here.
