Carry on concrete

Innovative Dafs populate this successful Northern Ireland building supplies business, the star of the fleet being a new flat-roofed XF Comfort Cab artic

- Dougie Rankine

In 1984 John Gilliland started a business in Carryduff, Northern Ireland selling animal feed and agricultural supplies, adding building materials such as sand and bricks. His first lorry was a Bedford TK, which cost him £1450, and he continued the farming business for another 10 years. As sales picked up he made a trip to England, and bought a concrete mini-mixer… and never looked back.

Boom in business

From that point on, this building supplies business has gone from strength to strength; a concrete mixing plant was installed in 1997, followed by a pre-cast production facility and then a builder’s merchant was opened on site in 2000. A block-making machine was bought in 2006, enabling the company to produce its own bricks and blocks. Last year, no fewer than 3.5 million of them were produced. This brought with it a surge in business and, consequently, the need for a new vehicle, in 2007, to deliver the material.

“The building trade was booming at that point,” says John, “and we were in need of an eight-wheeler block lorry. We made some enquiries and some of the manufacturers were quoting nine-month lead times just for a chassis. But we spoke to TBF Thompson, which had a truck in stock as a cancelled order and we’ve had a great relationship with them ever since.”

In-house benefits

At this point, John’s youngest son, Richard, left school and joined the family business alongside older brother Andrew. John’s wife Shirley runs the business, taking care of the office while John is working in the yard. At that point there were a total of three lorries – the new Daf CF had been joined by a secondhand CF mixer from the Republic of Ireland.