Member Article

Darlington restoration experts head south with half a million pounds worth of work

Stone Technical Services (STS) has secured a number of new projects in the south of England to assist with its North East expansion.

All of its divisions are carrying out projects on both ancient and new sites. STS’s is made up of five divisions- STS RopeSpec, STS Lightning Protection, STS Restoration, STS Maintenance and Facilities Management and STS Conservation- and the new contracts are worth in the region of half a million pounds.

The business’s restoration and maintenance teams have completed a major conservation project at Colchester Roman Walls in Essex, the oldest and longest-surviving town walls in Britain. Whilst working on the four-mile perimeter walls, STS had to briefly pause work due to an unexpected archaeological dig which discovered a 2000-year-old Roman road, an ancient canine corpse and wild boars’ tusks.

In London, STS Restoration has returned to the Royal Courts of Justice to start the refurbishment of over 70 chimney stacks, over a five-year period. The company has a long-standing partnership with the Royal Courts, where it has carried out a number of projects over the last five years.

STS Lightning Protection is the only approved lightning conductor engineer approved by the Clerk of Works at St Paul’s Cathedral, where the company has worked for over 10 years. The team has been back there refurbishing the lightning protection and carrying out repairs to the upper dome area.

Also in the London area, STS Maintenance is working at various pumping station for Thames Water, carrying out repairs to historic pumping station chimneys.

The last 12 months have seen STS experience its most successful year to date with a 20% year-on-year growth. The company has seen its turnover increase from around £2 million to over £3 million in the last 12 months and staff numbers are now approaching 50. There are plans to grow the business by another 20% in the coming year and create around five new jobs.

Managing director of STS, Dave Stone, said: “Securing further contracts across the south is fuelling our expansion in Darlington and allowing us to preserve jobs and also create new opportunities throughout 2018.

“The traditional techniques that we use at places such as Colchester Roman Walls are very specific to us and we train our craftsmen in house to ensure they have the best possible skills- lots of what we do is by hand because of the delicate nature of some sites. It’s this combination of working on ancient and modern sites that is allowing us to grow from our Darlington base and we hope to enjoy a buoyant 2018.”

STS was established by Darlington brothers, Dave and Grahame Stone, in 1998 and they now have offices in Edinburgh city centre, near Stockport in Cheshire and in central London as well as their HQ on Kellaw Road in Darlington

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anna Addison Associates .