Burnley is a prime location for family business Speakman Contractors

Speakman Contractors has grown from a small family business into a 35-strong national group at Billington Road industrial estate.

Director Chris Speakman amalgamated his electrical business with brother Andrew's joinery trade in 2009, and the pair have not looked back since.

Speaking to Burnley co.uk Chris explained: “Being based in Burnley gives us a fantastic advantage. We design, build, install and maintain with planned and reactive maintenance at the core of the business.

"We provide a 24/7, 365 days a week service to numerous clients with mobile phone masts underpinning our reactive division. Our telematics fleet means that when a mast fails to operate, we can deploy our nearest engineer. Being located on the M65 corridor gives us great access to the motorway network and ensures we can achieve the strict service level agreements in a timely manner."

This work takes their engineers across the country, but they also enjoy contracts much closer to home too.

Indeed, Speakman Contractors have just secured a contract in partnership with fellow Burnley Bondholder Barnfield to create a purpose-built facility for Science in Sport, leaders in endurance sports nutrition. Science in Sport has a site in Nelson and will take up a new facility at Frontier Park, Blackburn.

Speakman Contractors also helped fellow Burnley Bondholders Birchall Foodservice move to their new facilities at Burnley Bridge Business Park and works closely with Themis apprentices at Burnley College.

Chris added: “I’m on the college advisory board for construction, which means I can update them on industry changes, and they can feed this into how they shape their courses.

"Our in-house training programmes have also been recognised nationally – we won a North West National Apprenticeship Award for medium-sized businesses. Considering we were at the smaller end of the scale with our employee numbers, we were really pleased with that."

Speakman Contractors has employed five new apprentices over the past 18 months and are passionate about this route into a career.

The company also has a lot of contracts in the pharmaceutical industry, including healthcare for animals. It recently installed an automated system that could transform a powder to a pill for animals, whilst they are also experts at security and electrical installations, office fit outs and maintenance.

But it’s not just the strategic location that Chris enjoys about being in Burnley.

“The health and wellbeing benefits are incredible. You can finish work and head out into the countryside to walk, cycle, sail, mountain bike – the list is endless, and I spend a lot of my spare time outdoors.”