When the Portland quarries once worked by Hanson Bath & Portland (B&P) were sold to Geoff Smith’s Stone Firms at the end of 2004, B&P were left with a big hole in their order book because Portland limestone accounted for the largest part of their sales.

But without the Portland quarries to occupy their time, Shahram Hakimzadeh, the Operations Manager, and Gary Sellick, the Commercial & Project Manager, who between them run the B&P business day-to-day, have been able to concentrate on developing sales of their Bath, Guiting and Flick stones – with Hartham Park underground quarry in particular being developed into a major source of Bath stone.

These days Shahram and Gary report to Brian Garrett, who is the Managing Director of Formpave as well as B&P. Previously B&P were part of Hanson’s quarry division but are now in the building products division. The move gives B&P the backing of a division selling building products whose sales people will be able to put forward B&P products when a stone element is required for a project .

In the five years since the sale of the Portland quarries, Hanson have invested nearly £1.5million in the remaining quarries, mines and the processing centre at Keynsham, where nearly 1,200m3 of stone were processed last year – not all of it from their own sources as they process stone from other quarries as well.

The investment has included a second Fantini saw at Hartham Park – which is called an underground quarry rather than a mine to maintain the tradition of the area – and fully mechanising the operations at all the mines and quarries, improving productivity.

Last year B&P had their best year since the Portland quarries were sold. And they are still supplying some major projects. Shahram says: “We haven’t detected any real sign of recession. There may have been a seasonal blip, but no significant fall in demand – and that’s across all the products, from dimension blocks to finished masonry, covering many end uses from fireplaces to stately homes.”