When Hanson sold their Portland quarries at the end of 2004 their Bath & Portland dimensional stone business refocused on their Bath and Cotswold stones that had, until then, played second fiddle to the Portland stone. NSS paid them a visit and discovered the second fiddle is now producing a virtuoso performance.

Hanson Bath & Portland have access to as much Portland limestone as they need as part of the agreement of the sale of their quarries on the Dorset island of Portland to Stone Firms at the end of 2004. But, inevitably, their focus after the sale has turned to the Bath and Cotswold limestones they have retained. And what gems they have turned out to be.

The real jewel in the crown is Hartham Park Bath stone, which Bath & Portland (B&P) believe now has the dominant share of the Bath stone market.

When B&P had the quarries on Portland their main marketing effort was directed at selling the famous Jurassic stone for large developments in London, and the Bath and Cotswold stones took second place, being sold mainly as block to other masons.

Since the sale of the Portland quarries the focus has changed and the slimmed down B&P business has concentrated on the stone from the quarries and mines it retains – and they have invested £1.5million into improving them.

The investment includes a second Fantini extraction saw for Hartham Park and mechanisation of all processes previously involving powered hand tools. That has improved productivity and addressed health and safety issues, which they take seriously – their initiatives at Hartham Park have been used as a model by the Health & Safety Executive and other stone companies.

The investment has produced a step change in performance, says Shahram Hakimzadeh, who is in charge of production at B&P, working alongside Gary Sellick, Commercial & Project Manager.

B&P has a small but efficient team of 34 people – and Shahram praises the masons and quarrymen as among the best in the industry. He says they are a core asset of the business, some of them from families who have worked with B&P for generations.

The investment enabled B&P to satisfy last year’s high level of demand and produce a record year, with sales of around 15,000tonnes of Bath Stone – most from Hartham Park underground quarry but also some from Monks Park and Westwood mines – and a similar amount of Cotswold stone from Guiting and Flick quarries.

As well as producing stone, B&P also process it. They sold their Portland works to Stone Firms along with the quarries, but had previously bought the former Drings works at Keynsham, Bristol, following the appointment of receivers at Drings in 1998. Last year they processed more than 1,000m³ of stone at Keynsham.

Much of what they work there is their own stone, but they also process Portland and various other stones, such as the Clipsham for a mansion in Ireland that they worked on in 2006 and the Cadeby for the Cabot Circus shopping centre in Bristol last year.

At their works at Keynsham health & safety is taken just as seriously as it is in the mines and quarries. Manual handling has been eliminated and a massive dust extraction unit has been installed in the masons’ workshop to reduce exposure to airborne dust, although masks are also obligatory.

Following last year’s record performance. B&P say they have not detected much sign of recession so far this year. “There might have been a seasonal blip at the start of the year,” says Shahram, “but no overall fall in demand.

“We are involved in four prestigious Bath and Portland stone contracts in Oxford and London, supplying both dimension block and finished masonry. We have been selected as main suppliers for two new stately homes and are tendering for two more. And we have just completed very complicated cantilevered staircases, which presented a challenge for both the design office and masonry works.”

He attributes B&P’s buoyancy to the range of products they offer. Projects using Bath and Cotswold stones tend to be smaller than Portland stone projects and of greater variety, but with affluent people behind them they are still going ahead and demand for B&P’s stones as everything from fireplaces to stately homes has held up.

Gary Sellick told NSS: “We don’t do that much large commercial work, which has been worst hit – although I have just secured one commercial project in Bristol and one in Cheltenham.”

In a way, B&P wouldn’t mind a little respite to get done some of the things they have not had time to concentrate on in the past four, hectic years – such as establishing their head offices at Keynsham, producing a co-ordinated marketing approach with new literature and contributing more to the Stone Federation, which they have just rejoined.

Of course, everything is relative and although B&P have been busy, a record year for them does not even register on the multi-billion Euro balance sheet of their German parents, cement company Heidelberg, who bought Hanson Global in 2007 for £7.8billion.

There were reports in May that Heidelberg wanted to reduce their debts by selling Hanson for £1billion. Heidelberg have not commented, but it is unlikely, perhaps, that an asset such as Hanson will be sold so cheaply, although some ‘non-core’ operations might be disposed of.

B&P are used to being a non-core operation. Shahram, who has worked with Hanson for 24 years, has hardly known a time since he moved over to B&P in 1996 when there have not been rumours, at least, of someone buying the business. When the Portland operation was sold, Hanson’s intention had been to dispose of the whole of B&P, but they could not find a buyer who wanted it at the price being asked.

Shahram says: “Bath & Portland is a profitable business that’s highly valued by Hanson because of its underlying strength. It might be sold if the right offer came along, but in the meantime, it’s business as usual for us.”

From the start of this year, business as usual has been as part of Hanson’s Building Products Division, rather than Hanson Aggregates. Brian Garratt, MD of Formpave who now also has responsibility for B&P, says: “The decision to move Bath & Portland Stone into the Hanson Building Products Division has provided the opportunity to further develop the business. The enviable reputation of Bath & Portland Stone built over many years gives an excellent platform to build for the future.”

There is a cross-over of customers between B&P and Building Products. The move also gives B&P the full force of the Building Products Division’s sales force, who have been given product training on the natural stone range. B&P even have their own section of the website now (the address is at the top of page 33).

One aspect Hanson are keen to emphasise on all their building products is sustainability. They have a lot to say about the subject on their website, but basically they are looking for durability well in excess of 60 years, low or nil maintenance, heat and noise insulation and an ability to be recycled. If natural stone does not fit easily with many aspects of Hanson’s businesses, this is one area where it sits completely comfortably, with stone’s low carbon footprint, long life, ability to be recycled and, in the case of Bath stone, low impact on the environment due to being mined rather than open casted.

Hanson carry the environmental standard ISO14001 and Keynsham was one of the sites visited by BSI during their assessment of Hanson for the standard.

“The carbon footprint of natural stone is low because it’s manufactured by nature,” says Shahram. “The amount of energy we put into extracting it and processing it is actually very low.”

Losing the biggest part of your business as B&P did when the Portland quarries were sold may have looked devastating for B&P at the time, but as Shahram says: “There have been a lot of positive results of the split."