Member Article

Steel firm expects turnover leap to £6m

A County Durham steel firm is expanding again after winning more work and taking on additional staff.

Raisco, based on Aycliffe Business Park in Newton Aycliffe, has already seen a jump in turnover this year after seeing a dip in 2012-13.

Turnover dropped to £2.5m after it had doubled two years previous to £3.8m, but managing director Gary Raistrick says he expects it to leap to £6m in the current financial year.

He now has exciting plans to expand the company even further, with new lines of work and more job creation in the pipeline.

“We’re winning a lot of repeat business with the likes of Interserve, Miller Construction, Surgo Construction, Robertson, Esh and WS,” said Gary.

“But we’ve also recently taken on a number of new clients as well and we’re now working with the likes of Kier and Styles and Wood.

“Our projects cover the length and breadth of the country and with recent ongoing and awarded contracts from North Scotland, North West, South West and South East including also our local area in the North East shows our ability to operate nationally simultaneously.”

Raisco, which recently gained ISO9001 accreditation, has taken on five new members of staff over the last couple of months, taking the total number of employees up to 35.

Part of the new recruits to arrive with extensive experience within the construction and steel industry are Paul Dickinson, who has worked as an estimator, draughtsman, contracts manager and director and Stephen Forster who has worked as a senior quantity surveyor, commercial manager, director and most recently divisional manager.

Raisco have also appointed Craig Gregory as quality and production assistant, to assist with quality management and to alleviate pressures created within production caused by a significant increase in workload.

Raisco is working on a contract with Miller Construction on three Hub Health centres in Northern Scotland, totalling 320 tonnes-worth of steel.

After successfully completing a structural steel package on a 170-tonne bus depot in Dunston for Surgo Construction, the firm awarded Raisco the 45-tonne steelwork package for a new Mitchell and Butler restaurant in Shiremoor.

Other work has included a 50-tonne Mother and Baby Care Unit in Glasgow and a 63-tonne structural steel package for Redwell Primary School in Alloa, both for Robertson Construction, as well as a number of contracts for WS Construction, working on extensions and re-furbs for the supermarket chain Lidl in both the North East and South West of England and Interserve projects at Middlesborough College (65 tonne) and School at Ingleby Barwick (50 tonne).

And after completing a number Lidl extensions over recent years, Raisco has been awarded a 90-tonne steelwork package contract from Styles and Wood Construction for a new-build Lidl store in London.

“We’re literally working on projects all over the UK, and the signs are very encouraging,” said Gary, who formed Raisco in 2007 after 17 years in the construction industry.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .