Co-founder Les Lord details the rendering firm’s journey from the spark of an idea between two plasterers to a thriving SME fuelled by innovative machinery and team talent.
What makes a business, particularly a small-to-medium one, which accounts for 99% of the UK business population, stand out from the crowd and the test of time? Great leadership is one, innovation is another, as is being adaptable to change. Rotherham-based Lord & Downing Ltd which provides first-class rendering services across the building industry, is such a firm. Thanks to the established sector expertise of its two founding leaders, Les Lord and Russ Downing, it has harnessed technological adoption to great success across the UK and Europe.
The founding story starts in 1988 when fellow plasterers Les and Russ first met. After working together on various large-scale building projects from residential housing to Euro Disney in 1990, and many other projects in Germany in 1993, the pair learned the art of applying colour through renders and the new types of machinery to use to speed up the process.
This method, co-founder Les explains, had previously been applied by hand and was “time-consuming to say the least.” Once they returned to the UK, the duo made two decisions, firstly to “drop the plastering work,” and then to hone their expertise and mutual interests in rendering. By 2001, this became Lord & Downing, a revolutionary rendering company built on “promoting machine application and modernising the whole process.” The emphasis on technological adoption has meant “faster, more efficient production and turnover of works,” as well as “ease of application” for the “labour force,” he explains.
>Fast-forward to today and the founders of Lord & Downing have much to be proud of. The firm has overseen multi-million-pound contracts and varied projects spanning schools, prisons, hotels, private housing and “most major housebuilders.” Their workforce consists of “highly skilled operatives” who are expertly trained “to carry out the varied applications that colour through renders can be applied to.” In other words, building a talented and highly skilled workforce has defined the company culture, ensuring the team can offer clients the highest level of service promised.
Retention is impressive, thanks to the company’s apprenticeship scheme where a number have remained in the company “from boy to man.” Moreover, apprentices enjoy quality work experience including “onsite and one-on-one involvement.”
Businesses are like sharks – they must keep on moving to survive and prosper and Lord & Downing celebrated another great milestone in 2017 when PFT Northern Ltd, a sales and training business headed up by Les as an expert consultant on rendering machinery and one-on-one problem-solving, was incorporated into Lord & Downing. Today, both companies operate under the same roof in Rotherham and “run hand in hand providing both specialist knowledge in rendering systems, expert training and sales of both rendering machinery plus tools and equipment perfect for plasterers and renderers alike.”
In terms of remaining agile in the face of business change, the folks at Lord & Downing use energy-efficient materials and technologies to “not only reduce environmental impact but also to meet increasing regulatory requirements and consumer demand for eco-friendly buildings.”
Aside from giving clients peace of mind that they are employing planet-friendly procedures, they also want to show stakeholders that their industry standards are high. Under the guidance of Russ, the firm seeks CHAS accreditation, which is a Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme, and SMAS Worksafe, a nationally recognised health and safety accreditation for businesses, yearly.
Safety compliant, eco-aware, keen to recruit and retain top-skilled talent, and invest in the best machinery to make the rendering process as efficient as possible for clients, it’s clear to see that Lord & Downing have got a lot right over the last few decades, and with a quality sales and training arm to boot, it can certainly be called a forerunner in the UK rendering space.
