Frimstone secure major railway contract

East Anglian-based aggregates firm to manage seven Local Distribution Centres for Network Rail

EAST Anglian-based aggregates company Frimstone Ltd have won a long-term contract from Network Rail to manage seven of their Local Distribution Centres (LDCs).

The LDCs are strategically located across the country to ensure that the supply of materials for track maintenance contracts is carried out efficiently. Frimstone are contracted to manage the clean ballast stockpiles and to re-process and sell the spent ballast when it comes back to the LDCs.

Family-owned Frimstone have run the Whitemoor LDC at March, in Cambridgeshire, for the past seven years and, in that time, have pioneered the use of the re-processed track ballast in coated roadstone, surface dressing and ready-mixed concrete.

The additional sites awarded to Frimstone are: Carlisle, Doncaster, Toton (Nottingham), Crewe, Bescot (Walsall), and Eastleigh (Hampshire).

While the site at Whitemoor continues to be operated by Frimstone, the site at Carlisle became operational on 1 September 2011 and the remaining five sites will become operational on 1 November 2011.

The company currently employs 115 staff but expects this figure to increase to 150 by the end of this year.

Frimstone’s managing director, Gary Bell, commented: ‘The award of these contracts to Frimstone demonstrates that all the work in gaining approval to use secondary granite in coated roadstone, surface dressing and ready-mixed concrete has been recognized as the right thing to do.

‘We look forward to playing a major part in supplying high-quality recycled materials into infrastructure projects across the whole of the UK’.