This story is sponsored by Wolseley.
Ripon brothers Andy and Rich Hudson love working at Wolseley’s distribution centre in Melmerby.
Between them they have clocked up almost 40 years of service at the plumbing and heating merchants, which has its UK headquarters in Ripon and Warwick.
In fact it has been somewhat of a family affair, with their father and aunt also working for the firm until retirement.
Andy said:
“My Auntie Connie was with Wolseley for most of her working life and is still the telephone answer service when you ring head office.”
The company, which has a £1.8bn turnover, employs almost 5,000 staff in the UK, of which 270 are based in Ripon and 150 at the distribution centre in Melmerby.
It is Melmerby, a short ten-minute drive from Ripon, where the two brothers are based.
Twenty years of service
Andy said:
“I’m coming up to 20 years service. I started off as a general picker, packer.
“The advantage of working at Wolseley is there is always the opportunity to work somewhere new within the distribution centre and expand your knowledge base.
“I excelled at what I was doing in one area and then I moved into a different area.
“I’ve been trained on various manual handling equipment, fork trucks and more. There are about six or seven trucks I’m actually trained on. So Wolseley invest heavily in their employees to get the best out of them.”
Safety is key.
Varied work
Andy, who is currently working in the stock team, credits his long service to the variety of work.
He said:
“There are always different areas you can work in and different ways you can advance through the company.
“I’ve done various qualifications with Wolseley. I’ve done an NVQ in warehousing. I’ve also just completed a Wolseley Talent Booster and I’m about to start another course shortly through our Wolseley Talent Guild.
“This is in-house training and they have recently invested in the training suite at Ripon head office. So anybody can be put forward for this training by their manager. I’ve completed the training booster for Team Leader and I’m about to start training for manager level.”
Andy said there is always scope for growth at Wolseley.
Wolseley is currently training more than 130 apprentices across the UK and boosting the skills of more than 150 existing employees.
Andy added:
“All the way through there is training and support from your managers. Everybody wants the best out of you.
“I feel very valued and it’s such a nice atmosphere to work in.
“Every day is different. There are no two days the same.”
How it began
Wolseley started life in a very different form in 1887, moving into the heating space in the 1960s. Wolseley moved into Ripon in 1971 as The Wolseley Hughes Group.
It was based on Boroughbridge Road, where it remains to this day, and was made up of three companies OBC, Yorkshire Heating Supplies and Granville Controls.
In 1985, the company expanded its site and by 1996 was known as Wolseley Centres.
Wolseley is a leading specialist provider of plumbing, heating, cooling, and utility products to trade customers. Trading under a number of leading brands including Wolseley Plumb & Parts, Wolseley Pipe, Wolseley Climate, William Wilson, Jointing Tech, Burdens, and Fusion Utilities. It has over 560 branches nationally, three centres of excellence in the utilities space, support centres in Warwick and Ripon, and four distribution centres.
Rich Hudson has worked for Wolseley for almost 18 years and is currently the warehouse Team Leader at Melmerby.
He said:
“There is plenty of variety and plenty of opportunities to keep you interested.
“There are different machines to learn to operate and different departments you can move into – it never gets stale.
“There are also a lot of learning opportunities. Wolseley is currently putting me through an NVQ qualification in leadership and management. They offer qualifications for any area you want to go into.
“I met my lovely wife, who also worked for Wolseley, so they must be doing something right!”
Now is the time to join Wolseley’s distribution centre in Melmerby as a Warehouse Operative. Earn up to £24,211 per annum with generous benefits. Apply today by clicking or tapping here.
Eco business park near Ripon set for expansionMelmerby eco business park set to expand
A business park at Melmerby, near Ripon, has been granted planning permission to build a further three units at its 60-acre site.
The park, owned by Potter Space, is located close to the A1 (M) and has previously won awards for its carbon neutral unit.
The new units will add 70,000 square foot to the site and include solar panels, electric vehicle charging points and cycle stores.
Potter Space operates five business parks across England with a business model that prioritises sustainability, biodiversity and wellbeing.
Jason Rockett, managing director at Potter Space, said:
“We’re pleased to be able to bring our latest investment plans to fruition at our Ripon business park and create more high-quality warehousing and industrial space to meet demand.”
Read more:
- Harrogate’s Nelson Inn sold to pub restaurant chain
- Harrogate district unemployment figures remain low
Nominations open for Knaresborough Business Awards
Nominations for the first Knaresborough Business Awards are now open.
The awards, which will be held in August, have been organised by Knaresborough Business Collective.
Members of the public can now nominate their favourite Knaresborough business in 15 categories, including business of the year, favourite family run business, favourite group or class and favourite place to stay.
To nominate, click here.
Drivers heading to Melmerby business parks braced for ‘crazy’ road closureTraffic problems are expected this week when the principal route to and from two of the Harrogate district’s busiest business parks is closed for two days.
Between 7.30am and 5.30pm on Thursday and Friday, an eight-tenths of a mile section of Melmerby Green Lane, between the A61 and Barker Business Park, will be shut for carriageway repairs.
The daytime work on those days presents a huge headache for heavy goods vehicle drivers because the so-far un-signed detour route from both business parks will inevitably mean drivers will have to turn left towards the village of Melmerby on a road which has a 7.5 ton weight limit on it.
The weight limit sign on the approaches to Melmerby
HGV drivers making deliveries at both business parks were scratching their heads when the Stray Ferret visited. One said:
“I haven’t a clue where the diversion route will take me, but if I have to turn left and head towards Melmerby, the size of my lorry means I will have to break the weight limit.”
Another HGV driver said:
“This is a crazy situation, Thursdays and Fridays are two of the busiest days of the week for deliveries.
“Why couldn’t they have planned the roadworks at night, like they did with the work on the Ripon bypass bridge?”
North Yorkshire County Council’s highways team, says:
“Drivers will be able to follow a diversion route to avoid Melmerby Green Lane while the work is in progress and there will also be advance notifications on the A1.”
Within 100 yards of the Potter Space business park is the weight limit sign
NYCC’s highways area manager Melisa Burnham, said:
“We appreciate there will be some disruption involved and have done everything possible to minimise that, with a fully-signed diversion and advance warnings on the A1, particularly aimed at HGV drivers who may be heading to the business park.
“We are pleased to be carrying out work on Melmerby Green Lane and the road will be safer and better to use when it is complete.
More information is available on the roadworks map at www.northyorks.gov.uk/roadworks-map
Read more:
- Night time working to minimise disruption on Ripon bypass
- Double delay for Kirkby Malzeard road users
Hot Seat: navigating choppy waters at Ripon firm Wolseley
Few major employees in the Harrogate district have experienced more turbulent times recently than Wolseley.
The plumbing and heating merchants, which has a £1.8bn turnover, employs almost 5,000 staff globally, of which 270 are based in Ripon and 150 at a distribution centre in Melmerby.
Besides covid, this year Wolseley has been at the sharp end of Brexit and been sold to private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice for £308 million.
The man navigating the choppy waters is Simon Oakland, who has been chief executive of Wolseley UK since January last year.
Mr Oakland, who has a background in private equity, has been with the company in its various guises since 2012.
He doesn’t hide how difficult the last 18 months have been, particularly for staff in Ripon. The site, which opened in 1971, provides support functions, including accounts, payments, IT support and HR and have such felt the brunt of all the changes.
“As a business we have been through a lot of difficulties. There had been damaging cost cutting measures and we’ve been through a few strategic initiatives that haven’t been successful.”
The company, he says, lost customer focus when it integrated divisions in 2017. But a divisional restructure, completed in July last year, was the catalyst for recovery, he says.
The new suite at Ripon.
The figures back him up. In the financial year ending 31 July 2020, Wolseley lost £250 million of sales. Profit, forecast to be £60 million, came in at £6 million, partly due to covid.
But recently published accounts for the financial year ending 31 July 2021 show £75 million profit – considerably up on the pre-covid £54 million figure of 2019. Mr Oakland says:
“This is the first year of genuine growth since 2012.
“From August 1 last year we have had a strong recovery. The market is strong, but we’ve taken a lot of market share.”
He highlights the acquisition of 32 branches of Graham Plumbers in July as evidence of recovery.
Brexit blues
Brexit has not affected demand but it has disrupted the supply chain by making it harder for small European manufacturers to import into the UK.
It’s also created “real complexity” with exporting products to Northern Ireland, says Mr Oakland. The company now has to provide detailed certificate of origin forms and prove its products to Northern Ireland wont be moved on to the Republic of Ireland. He says:
“The process of importing from Europe is going to continue being a small stone in our shoe.
“The process of moving products to Northern Ireland is going to be very complex. Even with the number of exemptions in place now it’s incredibly complex. If those exemptions come off it will be even more complex.”
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Until this year Wolseley was part of a FTSE 100 company called Ferguson PLC, which operates in the US, Canada and the UK. But its demerger from Ferguson and sale to Clayton, Dubilier and Rice led to huge change.
“The demerger caused a lot of work and that significantly impacted teams in Ripon, especially finance and IT. We were fully integrated on IT with US and Canada and had to migrate.”
Private equity firms don’t have the best reputations but Mr Oakland says:
“I spent 20 years in private equity. I get private equity inside and out. There are different styles. Some buy defunct businesses and liquidate stock. At the other end you have firms that understand the sector and try to support and grow the business.”
Clayton, Dubilier and Rice fall into the latter camp, he says, and “bring real strategic insight”. But it wasn’t an easy sell to staff.
“I took the decision in July 2020 to be totally open with colleagues and told them it was likely we would be sold to a private equity firm. They took a lot of confidence from the fact that I have been a partner in a private equity firm. That helped to defuse the uncertainty and the Chinese whispers.
“The real theme was that we would be able to tap into our independence.”
50 years in Ripon
Wolseley was founded in 1887, when Frederick York Wolseley launched the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine. The firm expanded into manufacturing and in 1899, the first Wolseley horseless carriage went on sale in the UK at £120.
It acquired a number of heating companies in the 1960s. Today plumbing and heating account for £1 billion of the £1.8 billion turnover. Your home’s boiler, pipework, bathroom fittings and gas and electricity meters could well have been made by Wolseley.
Part of the refurbished Ripon site.
The company opened its Ripon office on Boroughbridge Road in 1971. The site reopened this year after a £500,000 refurbishment, which included a new learning and development suite for training courses. Mr Oakland says:
“It’s completely transformed the business in Ripon. It was very tired inside.”
Mr Oakland was born in Dewsbury and his grandparents lived in Starbeck. He is based in Warwickshire and says he looks forward to his trips north:
“I love it. It takes me back to the places where I went to as a kid.”
He enjoys food and wine and tries to complete one or two triathlons each year. Training isn’t easy when you’re on the road three or four nights a week but after a period of upheaval, quieter times at Wolseley may be ahead. He says:
Ripon company that played key role in covid marks 50 years in the city“The business is in a really good place now.”
It was many happy returns for Wolseley today, as the company marked 50 years in Ripon with the reopening of its headquarters.
The building on Boroughbridge Road underwent a £500,000 refurbishment during lockdown.
While that was underway, Wolseley continued to supply vital plumbing and building materials to the NHS in its fight to save lives and beat the pandemic.
At today’s family open day, Wolseley chief executive Simon Oakland told the Stray Ferret:
“The NHS required critical building materials and parts for the repair and maintenance of hospitals and we provided them throughout the lockdown.”
The Wolseley UK headquarters on Boroughbridge Road.
The Nightingale Hospital in Harrogate was one of the major infrastructure projects the company supplied.
Mr Oakland said:
“We are proud to have been involved in supplying every Nightingale Hospital in the UK and have also supported the UK mass vaccination programme through the provision of refrigeration equipment.”
New training centre
The company, which opened its headquarters building in 1971, has 280 employees based in Ripon, and a further 120 at its Melmerby distribution centre.
The Boroughbridge Road site provides administrative services, including finance and IT support and UK-wide the company has 500 branches with 5,000 employees.
Ripon City Band provided musical entertainment.
At today’s community party to celebrate 50 years in Ripon and the centre’s reopening, head of office and finance director Mark Stibbards, told invited guests:
“We have some people who have worked for us for 40 years and they are part of a great team.
“We employ locally in this area and have throughout our history, supported Ripon charities and other organisations, including Ripon Walled Garden, Ripon Cathedral Primary School and Ripon City Football Club.”
A new training centre on the site will not only develop the talent of the Wolseley team but also provide opportunities for community organisations that help individuals improve their skills and employability.
Farhan, who works in the IT department at Wolseley is pictured with his wife Samera and their six-year-old daughter Maiza on one of the children’s rides.
Today’s celebration event was attended by the Dean of Ripon the Very Revd John Dobson, representatives from charities, Wolseley employees and their children, former company directors and members of the community.
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The Mayor of Ripon, Councillor Eamon Parkin, who cut a ribbon to signal the reopening of the offices, said:
“I was born and bred in this city and have known Wolseley for most of my life.
“The 50 years of investment and employment they brought by selecting Ripon for their headquarters is greatly appreciated.”