Former aircraft engineer Steve Shaw is touching down on a first year since embarking on a major operation to move a high-growth commercial vehicle conversion business lock, stock and barrel begun. Now Cartwright Conversions is looking to export under a proud British manufacturing flag, and potentially double turnover in the next few years. David Laister toured the huge site with him.
A long-derelict former brickworks in Belton is now a hive of production activity and home to some of the most intricate vehicle finishing available in the 海角视频. There international ambition is also harboured under the well-trained eye of a former British Aerospace apprentice who has brought 20 years of “first class” career development to a rapidly expanding enterprise.
Cartwright Conversions launched four years ago across the North Lincolnshire border in South Yorkshire, a spin-off of a trailer manufacturer founded in Cheshire almost 70 years ago.
It quickly hit a rich seam of work, to the extent where the leased Hatfield site - close to the M180/M18 junction - was no longer fit for purpose.
Having joined nine months in, it is Mr Shaw’s Brough background that has been brought to the fore in a move that has required near-military precision.
Bright and airy, in a newly built internal office cluster, he nestles a coffee beneath a signed Hull City shirt.
We’re a year on from first employees setting foot on site, and it has been quite a 12 months.
“It was a really derelict former brickworks, we’ve had to spend a fortune on it,” he said. “There was 3.5km of fencing to put up before we got started, as it is a 28-acre site - and that was a big attraction. We have planning permission to double the size of the production area and a farmer’s field at the back that we can use for hard-standing storage.”
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There’s also a picturesque pond and plans to develop a gym and serviced dining facilities.
“When you have a small site, you can’t do anything, we were moving vans constantly to get work done. We are much more efficient now. You put your heart and soul into it; it has taken over my life completely. While we were completing we were manufacturing two of our biggest contracts, one at Hatfield and one here.”
Cartwright waved South Yorkshire goodbye in June.
“It is fantastic what has been achieved,” Mr Shaw said. “I wouldn’t have wanted anything else. There is the size, and we didn’t want to be too far away from Hatfield, I didn’t want to lose people.
“I live in Hull, we could have moved to Hull, but I limited the search to eight or 10 miles, I didn’t want to lose anyone.”
In fact he has significantly gained. Staff numbers are up from 65 to 90, with potential for more.
From a bare carcass to high dependency unit, production at Cartwright has electrical work as the starting point, with computer-aided designs printed out and spread on looms exactly replicating a vehicle’s configuration.
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It is not uncommon for 100m of cable can go into a single 6m van, then once installed there is the in-house carpentry and upholstery, or fitting of specialist modular panels, depending on the end use. Final inspection and development areas offering individual client privacy have also been introduced, and then there’s the crash test preparation and recovery that every model must go through.
Mr Shaw and his team operate in a specialist market. The offer is simple, while the work is often complex.
“Take Peugeot, they may sell 80,000 vans a year, and 500 need converting,” he explained. “It isn’t worth them doing it, but we can dedicate our business to that, and the other manufacturers in the same situation.”
Cartwright is currently operating four production lines, with orders as diverse as construction support vehicles ranging from Fiestas to 4x4 pick-ups requiring roof light bars and chevron livery, to hydraulic-operated aircraft access providers.
Individual attention to a vehicle varies from 10 hours to 1,000.
Some of the most dramatic is the Motability work too, with Cartwright the first company in 12 years to win a place on the scheme. The base of a vehicle is literally cut out and replaced with a low-slung pan, bringing more headroom for profoundly disabled passengers and easing access. Then there are the mobile banks, putting a mini-branch - safe included - on axles.
Arriving from O&H in Goole and well aware of the likes of Willerby, Victory, Swift, Auto-Trail and others operational in the Humber region, he sees a strong cluster - and with competition for the best staff - it makes getting the facilities right vital
He “cannot speak highly” enough of the 20 year career at BAE, “touching on everything” from lean manufacturing to people management.
And like BAE, it is by no means limited to Blighty when it comes to growth.
“Last year we were at £15 million turnover, and this year - because of the move - we will be around the same, but we have ambition to be £25 to £30 million in the next two to three years if all goes well,” he said.
“There’s a real export market, we’re looking to develop and have brought resource in. British manufacturing travels well, particularly in the Middle East, China and Hong Kong. Then there’s winning more tenders - with the likes of the NHS and the police. We think we can accommodate that in what we’ve done so far, but then we still have scope to go again.”
One area of interest is breast screening units. It could bring the two business divisions together - being trailer based - and due to the scale would immediately fill a line.
“We would then need to look at expanding,” Mr Shaw said, with more jobs the natural conversion.