This year, Collard Group reaches the enviable 30-year milestone while also being named a finalist in the Fleet News Awards for “Excellence in Fleet Safety”.

Considered one of the industry’s foremost enabling partners for construction projects nationwide, Collard Group (est. 1994) is a specialist recycling and waste management organisation that has increasingly developed an enviable reputation in the sector. We’ll take a closer look at the firm’s operations, strengths, and areas of corporate social responsibility to understand exactly what sets Collard apart from keen industry competitors.  

At present, Collard is host to a fleet of circa 282 vehicles (including 125 HGVs), supporting specialist services spanning: demolitions and enabling, waste management, and the supply of recycled aggregates and concrete. A large built infrastructure also backs up these operations, primarily in the form of self-managed workshops to ensure constant up-time for the fleet and enable efficient operations at scale (a common industry problem when dealing with the national dealer network). Strong relationships with Reading’s local Volvo dealers (with Volvo making up the majority of the fleet) further enhance this infrastructure.

A significant strength when it comes to Collard is the effort that the company goes to in understanding the specific projects and sites it will be supporting. Recognising the varying risks and challenges associated with different construction sites, Collard is known to deploy assessors (who double up as trainers) to each and every new site with the view of identifying site challenges and delivering tailored-training to its drivers. This ultimately ensures a bespoke service can be provided which minimises on-site disruption and maximises service efficiency. 

Not only does 2024 mark Collard’s 30th year of success in the industry, but this year also saw the company named a finalist in the Fleet News Awards’ “Excellence in Fleet Safety” category. The firm’s success in reaching the finals is a credit to the incredibly hard work being undertaken behind the scenes, but also distinguishes the firm as one willing to go far above and beyond traditional safety benchmarks within its industry niche. Furthermore, the news also continues on from a track record of safety excellence for the firm (as evidenced by its FORS Gold status).

As Roddy Taylor, Transport Director of Collard explained: “Someone asked me how on earth we managed to get FORS Gold for the 6th year in succession and implied it must be quite difficult to get. I told them it was dead easy. All you have to do is do what the Traffic Commissioner says that you’re supposed to do. He can impact your business and take away your livelihood, while FORS and the others can’t. They are still very good, because they will help you keep your standards up and raise awareness of areas to focus on, but so long as you’re doing what it says under the Operators License you will not fall foul of these things. That’s the important thing to look at.”

Offering further commentary on the support of FORS in driving safety improvements, he added: “The FORS training (e-learning) raises awareness of many safety topics such as load security, driving in winter, hazardous conditions, and more. The e-learning you have to go through with every single driver raises the awareness, which we then back up with regular, monthly toolbox talks and safety meetings to raise any safety issues. Again, with the driver assessors, they’re also trainers and if they’ll go out to look at any new sites before our drivers even get to them; that’s so they can assess any particular problem for a specification of vehicle being sent into that site.”

Aside from its safety efforts, it also goes without saying that Collard takes its environmental commitments very seriously. Driven by a zero-waste-to-landfill commitment, the company has consistently been improving its capabilities both in the volume of waste recycled and also the quality of output from this activity. This has ultimately been made possible via investments across the firm’s infrastructure and the development of an efficiency-oriented culture that aims to provide both the best possible service but also make the largest possible environmental contribution.

“We are recycling 98% of everything we handle and only 2% of it goes to landfill. When you see some of the numbers behind that, it’s a massive achievement. To make sure we have the latest equipment to ensure we can do this, we invested £8m into our plant and equipment,” commented Roddy. “We’ve also put a new Terex recycling plant and system into Reading, which is now fully functioning and operational. That’s reduced the amount of human interaction with it and it’s massively increased the output of sorting the materials; the quality of the materials coming out of it are much better.”

As a deeply competitive business, Collard Group is consciously looking at opportunities to grow the business in the future and so we do expect continued commercial expansion for the firm going forward. Especially as the organisation increasingly garners a reputation for going far above and beyond the industry norm in safety matters, it’s likely that the company’s reputation will play a key role in any future growth.

Transport & Logistics – Driving The Industry Forward