Teesside’ s proud industrial heritage is alive and well in the 21st century
ENGINEERING
Iron lady- then prime minister Margaret Thatcher’ s famous“ walk in the wilderness” in 1987 on former Head Wrightson land that is now part of a thriving business park – home to BC & T Consultants.
© Evening Gazette / Teesside Live / Peter Reimann
10,000 PROJECTS AND COUNTING
Teesside’ s proud industrial heritage is alive and well in the 21st century
BC & T Consultants has achieved a remarkable milestone by successfully administering its 10,000th project.
Founded in 1986, the ever-expanding Teesside firm celebrates its 40th birthday next year, meaning it’ s taken less than four decades to complete the 10K!
Based at Ash House, in Stockton, BC & T Consultants is a multi-disciplinary engineering and design consultancy providing process, mechanical, civil, structural and electrical, control and instrumentation engineering services to the process industries.
Boasting a highly-skilled team largely recruited from Teesside, the firm is directly involved in several impressive major projects and has forged a formidable reputation in the global petrochemical sector.
General manager Joe Melville is naturally proud that the business has reached such a notable milestone.
“ I’ ve just sanctioned the 10,000th project that we’ ve delivered as a company,” he confirms.
“ We started at project one in 1986 and since then we’ ve steadily completed one project after another to the point where we’ re up to 10,000!
“ When we first started in the 1980s it was a much smaller operation but the business has steadily grown to where we are today.
“ For the company, the group and everybody involved in the operation it’ s testimony to the effort the entire team has put in – all the current employees and the past employees – to get the business to this point.“ To deliver 10,000 projects- I doubt there are many companies that can make that claim, so for everybody involved it’ s an immensely proud moment for the business.”
BC & T Consultants was established in Whitby and then moved to Redcar before relocating to its current headquarters in Stockton. There’ s certainly no chance of the business resting on its laurels by taking future growth for granted.
“ Absolutely not,” Joe insists.“ It sounds very clichéd, but this feels like this is just the beginning of our overall growth and things are really starting to happen.
“ Moving forward we have plans that are going on in and around Teesside to grow the engineering operation and better serve our clients locally, as well as wellplanned growth nationally and globally.”
Joe regards BC & T Consultants’ success as proof that Teesside’ s proud industrial heritage isn’ t in the past.
Ash House is situated on land once occupied by the huge Head Wrightson industrial works that closed in the 1980s as the region struggled to cope with recession and the decline of UK manufacturing.
In fact, the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher was memorably photographed walking on the very wasteland that has since been transformed and now hosts BC & T Consultants and many other businesses.
“ We’ re an engineering company occupying the same site,” Joe explains.“ Head Wrightson was a prolific provider of apprenticeships back in 50s, 60s and 70s
Designs on growing – general manager Joe Melville is celebrating BC & T Consultants’ 10,000th project.
in heavy manufacturing.
“ You had heavy manufacturing, you had access to the river, you had ships coming in. Most of Teesside was fabricated out of Head Wrightson on the land we now occupy.
“ If you look at historical photographs of the area it looks completely different now to what it looked like 50 years ago.
“ We are a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy; we’ re still heavily recruiting engineers in the area to support the growth and expansion of the company. We see ourselves as a continuation of that proud Teesside industrial spirit.
“ As a company we consider the impact of the business – the employment side and the opportunities we are providing for apprentices and work experience students. That’ s all providing opportunities in the local area and delivering on some key projects in the UK and globally.”
BC & T Consultants is continuing to seek engineers across civil, mechanical, EC & I and process. To enquire about vacancies or opportunities at BC & T Consultants, email enquiry @ bctconsultants. co. uk
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