Steve Hook, who at one time worked for Marshalls Natural Stone, has been recruited by Charcon to spearhead an expansion in British natural stone hard landscaping.

Charcon are owned by aggregates group Aggregate Industries (AI), in turn owned by the multi-national Holcim. Aggregate Industries employ 6,500 people in the UK and have about 60 quarries.

One of them, Whitworth Quarry, which is five or six miles from the Marshalls’ Scoutmoor quarry that is the source of much York stone paving in the UK, is now being used as a source of York stone by AI after 20 years of being an aggregate quarry. They believe the York stone will appeal to clients in London in particular.

Charcon have put two wire saws into the quarry and are working alongside Fairhurst Stone, who are extracting the block and producing the paving. They are using a CNC machine for producing products such as tactile paving, radial paving and steps with non-slip edges.

Steve says he went to Fairhurst because it was quicker than trying to establish their own factory and because people used to producing aggregate did not have the mindset for extracting and processing block. “Big blocks terrify them,” he told NSS.

AI intend to turn other quarries to block production and forecast the move will give Charcon 10-12% growth this year.