We would like to congratulate the Webster & Horsfall Group on their success at the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce (GBCC Awards. Webster & Horsfall Ltd and Latch & Bachelor Ltd won the Excellence in Manufacturing award, and Tyseley Energy Park (TEP) were shortlisted for the Excellence in Sustainability award.

The Webster & Horsfall group joined eighty-two shortlisted organisations on Thursday 16 March at the ICC where they were announced as the winners in the manufacturing award category.

With over 300 years in business, Webster and Horsfall are one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of wire and strip providing bespoke products to a diverse range of clients throughout Europe, North America, and Asia, who won this award alongside their sister company, Latch and Batchelor, who specialise in wire ropes for mining, haulage, structural and general engineering applications.

Speaking about the award, Director Jonathan Horsfall said: “We were honoured to accept the award on behalf of Webster & Horsfall for our commitment to manufacturing excellence. Such excellency would not be possible without the unwavering support and dedication of our employees, customers, and partnerships. Thank you to the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce for recognizing our efforts with this award, among such an esteemed group of companies.”

GBCC’s chief commercial officer Katrina Cooke said: “The judges were extremely impressed by the standard of entries for this year’s award, which reflects the breadth, diversity and talent of businesses across the region.

We would like to thank panel for taking the time to review the applications. We also commend the huge number of companies who took the time to complete entries.”

Having celebrated their 300^th Anniversary in 2020, Webster & Horsfall are the youngest addition to this 14-member group of family firms who all share the distinction of being in business for more than 300 years and plying more or less the same trade then as now. The club has no rules except to provide a lunch to the other members in turn.

Members include:

• CPJ Field, Funeral Directors
• Whitechapel Bell Foundry, Bell Makers
• Lock & Co, Hatters
• Peter Freebody, Boat Builders
• RJ Balson & Son, Butchers (oldest member, established in 1515)
• R Durtnell & Sons, Building Contractor
• Folkes Holdings, Engineering and Real Estate
• Toye, Kenning & Spencer, Regalia and Insignia Manufacturers
• Shepherd Neame, Brewers
• Brookes Mill, Textiles and Real Estate
• C Hoare & Co, Private Bankers
• Fortnum & Mason, Speciality Grocery Store
• Berry Bros & Rudd, Wine and Spirit Merchants
• Webster & Horsfall Group, Engineering and Energy Park

During the annual gathering, group members toured Webster & Horsfall’s manufacturing facility and recently installed permanent exhibition, celebrating 300 years of continuous innovation. The tour then led on to the wider Webster & Horsfall Group site comprising of Latch & Batchelor, AJ Wilcock; all managed by the original Horsfall family.

The tour concluded with a walk around Tyseley Energy Park, an Energy Innovation Zone featuring; a 10MW biomass power plant, the UK’s first low and zero carbon refuelling station; incubation space to support local businesses in the development of innovative energy technologies; and the University of Birmingham’s Energy Innovation Centre.

Speaking about the day, Charles Horsfall, Group Chairman said: “It was a great privilege to host a group of such distinction that shares such long histories. We have all traversed the Industrial Revolution and today we had the opportunity to build on our record of continuous innovation as together we face the challenges of the Green Industrial Revolution”.

Europe is the star for Britain’s fastest-growing small exporters, according to research from Fast Track. The second annual Sunday Times Heathrow SME Export Track 100 finds that 80 of the featured small and medium-sized enterprises cite Europe as a main overseas market.

This shows the importance of the trading bloc for British exporters ahead of the European referendum on June 23, as well as the business opportunities that exist on the Continent despite recent sluggish economic growth.

North America is the second most popular market for the fast-growing SMEs, with 71 focusing on the region, followed by 45 that cite Asia as a main market.

By country, the US is a main source of sales for two-thirds of the businesses, followed by Germany (27), Australia (25), France (21) and China (19).

The league table measures average annual international sales growth over the past two years; figures range from 33% for the business in 100th place to 357% for the top-ranked company, Black Swan Data, a developer of analytical software — and there has been a significant rise in the number of companies turning to outside investors to help fund this growth. Venture capital and private equity firms, as well as business angels, back almost a third of the companies, up from 231ast year. London-based software firm HighQ (No 32), for example, raised $50m (E35m) in January from investors including Goldman Sachs Private Capital to help expand overseas and diversify from the legal sector into financial services.

Official figures released last week show that in the fast quarter of this year the UK’s trade deficit was at its highest level since 2008. However, the pace of over-seas growth achieved by the companies in the league table is higher than last year exports increased by an annual average of 84%, up from 73%. Almost a quarter of the 100 companies achieved triple-digit growth, compared with 14 last year. The 100 businesses have increased total sales from £787m to £1.3bn in two years, with most of that down to the E438m rise in international sales.

Some of the companies have been trading for a long time, such as Birmingham-based Webster & Horsfall (No61), which was founded in 1720 and made the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866. It is still owned by the Horsfall family and now works with partners such as Birmingham University to develop its wire technologies for on and gas, pharmaceutical and automotive industries.

Please see full article here Fast Track

We have achieved position 61 out of top Export Track 100.

Generating less pollution.

One major problem with conventional power stations is the amount of pollution that they can throw up into the atmosphere and the way in which it can then have a profound impact on the environment. Now, biomass energy is not entirely pollutant free, but it is accepted that power stations that operate within this area do produce less pollution than other energy sources. At the same time, we can stretch this concept further by stating how getting the raw goods, in this case the natural materials, is a lot easier with this method and is kinder to the environment. If you compare it to the way in which coal has to be extracted via vast mines you can see how using agricultural and natural waste, which is readily available, leaves less of a carbon footprint on the general environment.
In addition, it produces cleaner energy when it is being used by the end recipient and that in itself is a major bonus when you consider the pollutants that used to be thrown up into the air when coal was used in homes. Also, as energy produced by biomass power stations is cheaper to produce it is perfect for those countries where costs have to be kept to a minimum and considering they would generally rely on dirtier means of producing energy, then it is even more beneficial to the environment than you perhaps initially thought.

Generating more energy through greater efficiency.

Another major positive is that generating energy from this source is regarded as being far more efficient compared to other means. For example, it is accepted that the heat energy that is produced from a biomass plant is at least 3.5 times as much as the heat you would get if you were able to burn the energy source yourself. In other words, if you try to generate heat by burning wood, then you are going to get on a lot better if you run a biomass power station because you will get more energy and it will also work out at a much lower price compared to the alternatives that are out there.

Summary. why biomass power stations are part of the solution

This point about it being far more efficient and generating more energy for less money is certainly something that should be of interest to any countries that are looking at the possibility of investing more cash into this particular way of generating energy. The fact that it also does not scar the landscape in the same way, and indeed it uses those materials that even mother nature herself has tried to discard, is just an extra bonus.
There are of course a number of other major benefits associated with this type of power station as it takes advantage of a renewable energy source, it is green, it produces clean energy and so many other things that it makes so much sense for more companies and countries to look at turning to it as a way of producing energy. With the lower costs that are involved once everything is up and running it does mean that it makes so much sense to look at a biomass power station as a means to generate energy for some time to come.

For further details please click here

Ian Miller from MHW Treatment, said preparation work would begin imminently.

“We will be breaking the first ground early in the new year,” he said.

Canadian company Nexterra is designing and supplying the system, which will include four gasifiers, a high pressure boiler, and a flue gas treatment system.

The plant will convert recovered wood into electricity using gasification technology, where the carbon-based material in the waste is converted into a gas which is used to raise steam that is then passed through a turbine to produce electricity.

Serious consideration

The project will be supplied with around 70,000 tonnes a year of wood from JM Envirofuels, a Birmingham landscaping and recycling company.

“The scheme has been in the pipeline for three or four years,” Mr Miller said.

“And it’s been under serious consideration for about a year.”

The plant, which is due to open in 2016, has an estimated shelf life of 20-25 years.

It will be on the site of the Webster and Horsfall factory, where the first transatlantic cable was manufactured in 1866 – it comprised of 30,000 miles of wire, and took 250 workers more than 11 months to make.