Steel stockholders AH Allen Steel Services are based on Liliput Road, Brackmills. Here, Sales Manager Penny Etheridge, talks about the company, its commitment to supporting and working with neighbouring Brackmills businesses and the unusual demands placed on the company throughout the pandemic…
Peak Periods:
Unlike so many of our neighbouring Brackmills businesses Christmas is reasonably quiet for us. The Covid-19 pandemic was an eye-opening experience for us as a business as our workload doubled, distributing 60 tonnes of steel per day. Our Brackmills based team were the middleman for many hospitals across Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Cambridge, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. We stock and distribute steel to engineering companies that manufacture hospital equipment, so the Government sent us a letter requesting that we continued to work.
We also dealt with a heart-breaking number of enquiries from morgues during the pandemic as they were getting so full, we were asked to provide steel for body trays. We also provided steel for fans to cool down funeral furnaces that were catching fire from being worked too much.
As a business, we did not furlough any staff and we were all working onsite, the restrictions just meant that we could no longer have walk in customers and they must book to come and collect their steel.
Our history:
We were established in Northampton in 1901 during the First World War and provided materials and steel such as the much-needed steel capped boots. We’re part of the Barratt Group which is the biggest independent stock in the UK.
We stock steel for all trades and also do a lot of work in the health and safety sector, increasingly prioritised by businesses since the pandemic struck.
Our work on Brackmills:
We moved to Brackmills 25 years ago because we need more space and we now employ around 50 people here and a total of 3,000 across the business as a whole. We really want to work more local businesses and to promote ourselves to fellow Brackmills companies.
Our message is simple: we are here to help and can support you with all your fixtures and fittings.
Future ambitions:
We have a long-term plan to grow from strength to strength, by reintroducing ourselves to Brackmills businesses and we would also like to get our name across other Northamptonshire business estates too. We have the ability to help any kind of business and would like to the let them know that we’re still here. In the past, all locals would have known our name, but we are lesser known to the younger generation – and want to change this.
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
@A H Allen Steel Services