Intium Construction – A safe pair of hands

BSG member, Intium Construction, talks about its commitment to Health & Safety with support from the Building Safety Group (published in Construction News).

In addition to being a quality-led company, Intium Construction has also always been committed to providing high standards of health and safety. This approach was recently underlined further when one of its employees, Mick Bull, was named Site Manager of the Year (Midlands) at the prestigious BGS Health & Safety Awards 2023.

“Mick has been with us for five years and he’s a very diligent site manager and an experienced operator,” explains Andrew Slaney, Managing Director. “He recently managed a housing site in Nottingham that we’d taken over from a contractor that had unfortunately gone into receivership. Following completion of the project, the feedback from the client was extremely positive, to the extent that they said that Mick was the best site manager they’d ever worked with. To get that kind of response is fantastic and to follow it up with an award is even better.”

Such an achievement doesn’t come about by accident and is instead indicative of the importance Intium Construction places on health and safety. “We’re very conscious about operating in the safest manner possible, as most contractors are in this day and age,” adds Mr Slaney. “Health and safety is the priority at all times and we are independently monitored by BSG to ensure we’re on the right track. As Managing Director, I receive a copy of the audit scores every three weeks. If there’s any issue at all, I personally take responsibility in ensuring that it is resolved quickly. What’s more, we’re very strong on training and ensuring that all our staff have the necessary PPE they need. I feel it’s important that we empower our staff to make decisions on safety for themselves, as it’s vital that they feel that level of responsibility rather than being mollycoddled.”

This philosophy is obviously working, as demonstrated by the BSG Award and Intium Construction’s strong health and safety record. What is also working for the company is the approach it’s been taking when delivering projects for its clients, as it has recently enjoyed a number of years of excellent growth.

“The Covid pandemic was a difficult time for everybody, but we were able to come out the other side relatively unscathed and stronger for the experience,” outlines Mr Slaney. “We were very fortunate in that we had a number of projects onsite, so we had some significant turnover at the time to play with. Having come through the other side, 2021 and 2022 have proven to be two of our most profitable years ever. In fact, we doubled turnover in this period to its current level of £13m. 2023 is shaping up to be another really good year for us, so the outlook is positive going forward.

“We’re able to be a bit more selective in terms of the schemes we’re carrying out, with a heavy emphasis on commercial and industrial projects. Warehousing and logistics units have become our bread and butter in the past two years, and we’ve carved out a really strong niche in this area that we’re more than comfortable with. The experience we’ve built in this sector has set us in really good stead. That said, we are maintaining an interest in other markets too, such as residential, although the climate in this sector is definitely more challenging at the moment.”

In terms of specific commercial and industrial projects Intium Construction has carried out recently, these include the completion of £6m headquarters for Browns Distribution in Stoke-on-Trent and a speculative industrial unit in Whitchurch. It is currently onsite developing a £3.2m battery facility for GivEnergy, also in Stoke-on-Trent, and building a storage warehouse and offices in Cheadle as part of a £2.6m development.

Away from the industrial sector, Intium Construction has just been appointed by a Nottingham developer to work on a service station scheme on the A1(M) valued at £3.3m. This will include a Costa Coffee, a Wendy’s Drive-Thru and various retail units. Within the residential sector, meanwhile, the company is just about to complete a £4m housing scheme in Haslington, Crewe.

“We’ve got a healthy order book, so we just want to continue on the same upward trajectory,” says Mr Slaney. “We’re not precious about turnover, as making a profit is much more important. We’d certainly never buy work just for the sake of it. We’re also looking to do our bit from an environmental point of view too. In the last couple of years we have replaced our company cars with a fleet of electric vehicles and have installed charging points at our offices.”

It’s clear that Intium Construction is continuing to travel in the right direction, not only from a sustainable and commercial perspective, but also in terms of health and safety too.

Published by Construction News 5th September 2023