COMPANY PROFILE - BY SANDRA DICK
‘Doing simple things right’: Lavelle Waste pushes ahead and is taking Greater Manchester area by storm
IN THE evolving and increasingly sophisticated world of waste, it is beginning to feel that pretty much everything can be recycled, reborn and rebooted. From spent coff ee grounds into biofuel, old wood into chic architectural features – to last year’s fashions into new threads; the end of one thing can soon become the start of another. Now father and daughter Craig and Emma Lavelle have gone a step further – and ‘recycled’ links with an old family business into a new enterprise. To be fair, Bolton-based Lavelle Waste Services is entirely separate from anything that went before, but there’s no escaping the family ties with Lavelle & Sons, founded by Craig’s father in 1976 and which at its peak had a fl eet of 30 vehicles, 65 staff and a £6.5m turnover before being acquired by a national waste management company in 2001. The decision to sell one of the largest recycling businesses in Manchester appeared to have brought to an end a 25-year spell of family ties to a business bearing their name. However, fi fteen years on, the ‘Lavelle’ name is fi rmly back, and emblazoned on the sides of a new fl eet of vehicles.
explains Emma, who had been working as Transport Manager for another waste company. “But then there just came a point when we thought
“My dad and I had been working for separate fi rms,”
‘let’s do it’.”
With the recycling industry imprinted in their DNA – and with Craig continuing to manage and own various recycling businesses from 2001 onwards – it was probably only a matter of time before the Lavelle family launched another recycling company. Established in late 2016, Lavelle Waste Services has quickly picked up where the old Lavelle & Sons left off , with a similar portfolio of waste collection services in a new location. They’re now based at a state-of-the-art unit on Gladstone Road, Farnworth in Bolton. Another key diff erence is an array of modern advances, designed to equip the new business for a digital ‘push button’
12 SHWM December, 2018
CRAIG, Emma and Sam Lavelle (centre) with their A-Team at the company's Bolton site
preparing for the upcoming paperless age, while meeting customers’ increasing demands for instant information and no- fuss communications. Emma, Transport Manager at the new business, said the plan is to stand out from the crowd by “doing the simple things right”, which includes a highly personalised service for their customers. “It was a desire for things to be done right that led to us setting up on our own,” she says. “Putting the customer fi rst lies at the heart of the off ering, asking the question 'what does the customer want?'” The original transfer station, recycling and waste business – Lavelle & Sons, operated from Churchill Way in Traff ord Park and was bought by giant Viridor Waste for a substantial fee. “I was only around 11 years old,” recalls Emma, “but I remember being fascinated with all the machinery and the picking line.
“I’ve been surrounded by the waste industry for as long as I can remember,” she says. Emma drifted into the sector after picking up an offi ce role with one waste business. Her natural fl air for the sector developed and she quickly moved up the ladder to the level of Transport Manager, achieving several industry-related qualifi cations on the way. On top of Emma's success, it’s a family aff air that seems set to last after her
brother, Sam Lavelle, joined the company in the operations department after three years studying at the University of Lancaster.
Sam said: “After studying business management for three years I intend to use my degree to further better the outstanding performance of the business. “But whether I went to university or not, my intention has always been to contribute to the family business.” Lavelle Waste Services began with just four members of staff and has already grown to employ double fi gures. Like any new business, Craig and Emma
EMMA and Craig Lavelle during the fi rm's rebirth in mid-2017
www.skiphiremagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
