Aggregate result: the growing success of an award winning family business.
HJ Bennett in Sandown has been supplying quality construction aggregates to the Island’s construction industry for over 60 years. The award winning team also offer haulage services, material waste removal, construction waste recycling and land restoration to their Isle of Wight clients. They’re firmly a local business – none of their sand, gravel, grit or chalk crosses the Solent.
“All of our business is based on the Island, one hundred percent,” says managing director Nigel Bennett. “Supplying the construction industry is our main business, as well as keeping the tidal estuary open at Bembridge beach. We are heavily involved in the Pan Meadows development in Newport, together with other Barratt Homes developments. We also work closely with Island firms, Stoneham Construction and D N Associates and supply a number of builder’s merchants.”
Nigel joined the family business in 1975, becoming managing director when his father Hilton Bennett died in 1990. Hilton founded the business in 1948 although the family line goes back even further, to Nigel’s grandfather. Frank Bennett and Son would remove shingle from the beaches at Seaview and Bembridge, as well as seaweed from St Helens beach to make fertiliser. Great Uncle Joe Bennett would provide haulage services from his horse and cart.
These days HJ Bennett provides dredging operations from its compound at Bembridge, an operation that keeps the harbour open for sailors and fisherman (whose livelihoods depend on it) and as a statutory requirement of the Bembridge Harbour Act of 1963.
“The best way to describe it is as a self-filling quarry and it’s the foundation of the business really,” Nigel says. “We take 20,000 cubic metres of sea-dredged aggregates a year, to keep the estuary open. Once screened, graded and sized, it’s sold on to builders. We can only access the beach at certain times of the day because of the tide. The process is also environmentally friendly because it’s really a waste product and the dredging preserves the habitat further up the River Yar. There’s no landfill aspect, and there’s no visual eyesore either because there isn’t a quarry or any disruption. If we didn’t have that material here it would have to come from the mainland, so that’s a saving in costs, carbon footprint and logistics. It’s a win-win situation.”
HJ Bennett’s activity helps to maintain wetlands right up the River Yar into Sandown and prevents flooding further up the river. Nigel’s been told by experts that the benefit of this work to the community is valued at millions each year. This historical activity is the bedrock of a company which has grown significantly in recent years. In 2012 the company left their head office in Bembridge High Street to relocate to Sandown. Their new site gave them more space, with meeting rooms and offices for the back-office team. They have extensive workshop facilities from which the company fully maintain its own fleet of vehicles, plant and equipment. The team has grown too, more than doubling in size from just seven in 1994. Today 20 employees are based at Faulkner Lane in Sandown. It’s still a close knit operation, preserving the family feel, with husbands and wives, twins and brothers making up a friendly team.
“Our client base and volumes are very consistent, but do vary depending on the projects that they’re working on at any specific time,” Nigel says. “Business is pretty consistent because I always go out to find work in other areas at quiet times. It’s about survival really and you have to understand the idiosyncrasies of the Isle of Wight. The construction sector isn’t particularly buoyant at the moment. Smaller developers aren’t able to borrow money in the way they would like from the banks so we have to find other niches, like bigger construction sites, that we can serve with the equipment that we have got. Trading times are quite difficult for the Island as a whole but we’re definitely holding our own.”
Their distinctive grey lorries are washed every day and Nigel promises that “you won’t see a dirty lorry, we take a lot of pride in our fleet”. Many of the original HJ Bennett vehicles are still within the company’s ‘Heritage Fleet’, in original livery and seen at events across the Island. Nigel is keen to honour the past and evolve his business slowly and carefully. Under his stewardship HJ Bennett has grown consistently, keeping its independence and finding new avenues to explore. The company has received recognition too, picking up the Green Business Award at the Isle Of Wight Chamber of Commerce Awards in 2011. Their commitment to the Island, its economy and environment defines Nigel’s team. They took over Lavender Farm outside Newport as an abandoned quarry and the site has now been returned to nature. “Nature has colonised it, we’ve just been able to point it in the right direction,” Nigel says.
Although much of the business is still the same as it was in 1948, many aspects have changed, including technology and the needs of the consumer. The ever-changing economic situation means that no year is identical for HJ Bennett. The global economic slowdown of recent years hit the industrial construction sector more than most and recovery is taking time.
“Unfortunately the industrial marketplace is decreasing,” Nigel says. “They’re building houses but we need more factories and industrial buildings on the Island, so that people can go to work. The Island used to be home to world-leaders like BHC and Plessey, and that used to filter down to companies like ours. When they wanted to expand their facilities, they would come to us for materials. Customers are a lot more demanding now too. The marketplace is changing all of the time and we have to keep an eye on changes in the building industry. It has been really difficult in some areas in the last few years. It’s about being responsive as a business really. Timelines are shorter and orders can come in at the last minute. Having access to the materials and a flexible team and fleet really works and our team are all multi-tasking.”
Nigel spends most of his time managing the company so he doesn’t engage with the wider business community very often. He admits that he often learns about new companies from the pages of Island Business magazine and always tries to use Island companies whenever possible. He’s modest by nature but he’s quietly very proud of his team and business. After all, he’s spent 40 years working for HJ Bennett with 25 of those years as managing director, steering the company to greater success in each year.
“I’m proud of HJ Bennett and it’s definitely an achievement to still be growing after all this time. It’s jolly hard work, with long hours, but it definitely does have its rewards. In many ways the business is still essentially the same. We run the business quite lean in order to keep our costs down internally and pass that on to the customer. In some ways things are easier now but business owners mustn’t forget that the Isle of Wight definitely is different. The main thing is to find your place in the market and don’t over-stretch yourself. I do everything slowly, with firm foundations. You have to really know your own business. It’s a bit like a game of chess and I’m playing the long game.”
“I’m proud of HJ Bennett and it’s definitely an achievement to still be growing after all this time. In some ways things are easier now but business owners mustn’t forget that the Isle of Wight definitely is different. The main thing is to find your place in the market and don’t over-stretch yourself. I do everything slowly, with firm foundations.”
Nigel Bennett, HJ Bennett
First published in the November 2015 Island Business magazine.
