Siddall & Hilton Products Ltd is the UK’s leading manufacturer of welded wire mesh, with its Brighouse roots going back as far as 1895. Who would have thought that our 125th year would be so eventful – or unpredictable?
We reluctantly decided to close the business following the lock-down announcement to protect the health and wellbeing of our employees and furloughed the majority of staff. We agreed to continue paying everyone 100% of their normal pay to prevent unnecessary hardship and to try to help keep the local economy going.
We returned to business in a cautious and limited way after a month and have spent the last few weeks investing in our somewhat cramped office space to adapt it to permit appropriate social-distancing measures. This has generated work for local builders, decorators, carpet fitters and glass partition manufacturers. As a result, we will be in a position to bring everyone back into the business during July.
During this time, we have also managed our cash resources very carefully to ensure that our business suppliers were all paid on time and in full to support our valued suppliers through the crisis.
Working closely with our primary lenders we have successfully refinanced the business in recent weeks and are now in a position to consider the resumption of our ambitious investment plans for new machinery and site development later this year. We believe that the best way to counter the economic downturn is through investing in our business to be prepared for the upturn when it eventually begins. This will provide further work for the UK and locally based contractors.
We might not be ‘essential workers’ or capable of providing equipment and services to the NHS, but we believe we’ve done our bit to save lives, protect the NHS and help to keep the local economy ticking over by ‘Keeping calm and carrying on.’