R & C Williams | Birmingham Gully Cleaning contract sustains 40 years of history

R & C Williams have been civil engineers in Birmingham since 1957, with a strong foundation in building bridges, structural repairs, steelworks, fabrication and drainage.

One other foundation firmly rooted in the company’s history is their fine work on Birmingham’s drainage network.

R&C have cleaned Birmingham CC carriageway drainage for the past 40 years. The most recent award of this contract was awarded in 2010 via Amey on the Birmingham PFI contract.

“Kier was awarded the Birmingham Interim Services Contract for 15-months with a further 2 x 6-month extensions possible, taking over from Amey.”

Under the new Kier contract, R & C competitively tendered for the work and after a successful bid, commenced operation on the new Kier contract on 01/04/2020.

Success for R & C Williams with this bid is both a success for the company, but also a huge boost for the local area – with R & C Williams themselves located at the heart of Spaghetti Junction. A local company, employing a local workforce will now see the funds from the Birmingham contract supporting people within the area.

Contracts Manager Sam Drew told us:

“It’s great for R & C Williams that we can extend our long-standing working relationship with Kier and Birmingham CC and continue to maintain the city in which we’re based. Additionally, the support this contract provides to the local area through employment is something which gives us a lot of pride in particular.

“We have implemented a TUPE transfer of 7 operatives from the previous supplier and employed a supervisor to oversee the contract – a further boost to local employment.”

TUPE is a regulation of transferring operatives from another company under the same terms ‘Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006’)

“In fact, all of the operatives who are working on the contract now live within a 10-mile radius of Birmingham City Centre.”

To support the operation, R & C Williams has invested in a further 4 medium volume HGV jet-vacs to facilitate the contract and maintain their long working history for Birmingham.

“Additionally,” Sam continued:

“We have the facility of a wet waste transfer station within our Depot, which is based beneath the iconic Spaghetti Junction. This facility is shared by Kier under collaboration, also servicing the midlands links motorway network.”

Whilst carrying out the contract, R & C will collaborate and integrate with Birmingham CC’s use of data capture system CONFIRM in order to accurately record job data. The system will enable monitoring and planning features, real-time updates, pre and post job photography and serves a method of boosting collaborative efforts and efficiency between the 2 parties as Birmingham is served.

Peter Craddock, General Manager of the Birmingham Interim Services contract for Kier told us:

“R&C Williams have been great in helping us to deliver the gully cleansing aspect on this contract and were very supportive and proactive when taking on the TUPE transfer of 7 operatives from the previous supplier.

“We are also looking forward to engaging their services in delivering various structural maintenance activities in the future.”

For more information about R & C Williams please visit: www.randcwilliams.ltd.uk