Mechanical fixings company Ancon, based in Sheffield, has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its lockable dowel.

Ancon’s Managing Director, Stuart Maxwell, is pictured here receiving the Award from the Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, David Moody.

The Lockable Dowel is an innovative component that accommodates shrinkage and transfer loads at joints in long-span concrete floors.

The lockable dowel avoids the need for time-consuming metre-wide ‘pour strips’ left between adjoining concrete slabs to allow for shrinkage, which can delay completion of a structural frame by up to 12 weeks.

Speaking following the official Queen’s Award presentation at the company’s Sheffield Head Office last month (October), Stuart Maxwell said: “To achieve this prestigious award we demonstrated that Ancon is not only innovative in its approach to solving problems for our customers, but that we have made significant advances in performance and commercial success over a number of years and have achieved the highest level of excellence in every area of the company. It is confirmation that we are a world-class business in every sense.”