Future’s bright for Interface

OLDHAM-based Interface Contracts has won a near-£600,000 deal to supply specialist electrical design and installation services for the Greater Manchester Waste plant.

The company, based at Pennine House, Denton Lane, Chadderton, has been awarded the contract by Enpure — the main sub-contractor to developer Costain — in the face of stiff competition from rivals.

The move marks the end of a record year for Interface which has also seen the electrical mechanical business pick up contracts worth a total of £4.8 million, with annual turnover reaching £5.4 million.

Formidable

Interface has bucked the recessionary trend to achieve the most successful 12 months in its 14-year history and is well on the way to exceeding its target of a £10 million to £15 million turnover in the next five years.

The firm’s ability to beat the economic downturn has been built on a formidable track record in the water treatment and wastewater treatment sectors, in which the company now enjoys preferred supplier status to a number of the UK’s leading contractors including Costain, KMI and Morgan Est.

This new contract in Manchester has been won by Interface’s newly established waste recycling division and follows on from a near-£400,000 contract for the Derwenthaugh Waste Reclamation Site near Gateshead.

The year has also seen Interface launch a commercial contracting division which won £500,000 worth of contracts in its first four months, adding eight new clients.

The expansion into the waste reclamation and commercial arenas has been motivated by concerns over a potential slowdown in its traditional industrial arena, in particular water treatment, where Interface is acknowledged as a market leader in the electrical sub-contracting field.

Founded in Oldham by three local electrical engineers back in 1994, Interface has built its formidable reputation by ensuring excellence in design prior to commencement of a project and then unrivalled quality of site installation.

The highly-qualified Interface team currently includes five project engineers and four electrical design engineers and relies heavily on home-grown talent through an apprenticeship programme which has nine local youngsters on board.

One apprentice recruited from Oldham Training Centre as a 17-year-old is now the company’s senior design engineer.

Managing director David B Taylor says: “Where 2009 was not an easy year for anyone, we have come out of it better than most.

“Having seen a predicted slowdown in our core line of business, namely the waste water market, we have successfully expanded into the commercial and waste management sector with better than anticipated immediate results.

“We are now looking forward to the utility companies starting to release new tranches of improvement work for water-related infrastructure, from which we are well positioned to benefit.

“The contract for Greater Manchester Waste has made our advance order book even healthier and so we have gone into 2010 with a degree of confidence which, sadly, hasn’t been shared by all Oldham companies.”