A GOVERNMENT minister visited a Colne Valley company to find out about the challenges facing smaller firms – and share in its recent successes.

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Newby of Rothwell, who is Treasury spokesman in the House of Lords, toured the Marsden premises of specialist electronics firm Andel Ltd as guest of directors Ian Pogson, Marshall Booth, Mark Harris and Julie Greenwood.

Andel Ltd, a past winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, was one of the success stories of the London Olympics – installing and commissioning several leak detection systems in the main stadium, the white water canoe course and the Olympic village.

Lord Newby found out about the company’s Floodline system, which has been installed by organisations including BAE Systems and West Yorkshire Police to monitor and detect leaks which could damage sensitive and expensive equipment.

Mr Pogson, managing director, said: “Lord Newby is a hard-working life peer who has been very helpful to us over the past year by meeting and greeting our business contacts from Poland and China and arranging visits to the Houses of Parliament for them.

“We wanted him to visit us and meet or staff – and he wanted to see for himself how a small company operates and what kind of challenges we face in a tough economic climate.

“One of the problems is that we don’t have much of a voice and we live in a very different world to many of the people in their ‘ivory towers’ in Bishopsgate.”

Andel Ltd has operations in Poland and is eyeing up opportunities for further Olympic success at Rio 2016 by investigating the market in Brazil.

[via] The Huddersfield Examiner

It wasn't just the sportsmen and sportswomen of GB that were winning Gold at the Olympics this year.  We are pleased to announce that Andel Ltd played its part too by supplying, installing and commissioning several pieces of Floodline leak detection equipment in several areas throughout the Olympic Village for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.  The following is an article published by The Huddersfield Examiner:

A COLNE Valley company is sharing in Olympic gold.

Specialist electronic company Andel Ltd played a major part behind the scenes at London 2012 and the Paralympic Games.

The Marsden-based firm supplied, installed and commissioned several leak detection systems in the main stadium, at the white water canoe course and the Olympic village.

The equipment ensured that essential services such as lift pits, CCTV systems, the apartment blocks and the plant room controlling the white water rapids remained secure from unwanted and possibly unnoticed water damage which could have jeopardised daily events.

Now Andel is casting an eye at Brazil – and the 2016 Games.

Mark Harris, commercial director at Andel Ltd, said: “We always take real pride in every client and we believe when you look at our customer list it is a ‘Who’s Who’ of UK businesses and public sector organisations.

“But I have to say all of us at Andel take special pride in the small part we feel we have played in the undoubted success of the London Olympics and the Paralympics Games.”

Mr Harris said Andel approached the architects and consulting engineers about providing its equipment to the Olympics within a year of London winning the bid.

The firm, which has about 35 employees, designed its leak protection systems on computer having been provided with detailed plans of the buildings and sent its engineers to install them.

“Our equipment is designed to protect facilities where even a small flood could prove catastrophic, but where a leak would ordinarily be undetected until it was too late,” said Mr Harris.

Following its London 2012 success, Andel is already looking to the next Olympics at Rio in 2016.

Mr Harris said: “Brazil is our third-biggest export market. It is bigger than anywhere in Europe apart from Italy and we have a very good distributor there. We will be pushing our distributor to pursue potential contracts for the Rio Games.”

Andel, established in 1992, has remained committed to Huddersfield as the headquarters of a business which serves customers across the world – both directly and through distributors.

Its award-winning products and services have been installed in Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, most major banks and telecoms companies, data centres, hospitals, art galleries, libraries and museums.

Earlier this year, the company was shortlisted for the Sustainabilitylive! Innovation Award for Environmental Technology – pitting the business against major industry names.

 [via] Huddersfield Examiner

Over the weekend local news reports have shown a significant oil leak entering the Knostrop canal system in and around Leeds.  As of yet the Environment Agency is unsure where the oil has come from and has implemented an emergency clean up operation.

This story highlights how companies can be unaware of problems their site could be causing.  Andel's PPL division is well-placed to offer your company that peace of mind to ensure you are not the cause of pollution and possible prosecution.

With products like ReBund we can ensure that in the event of a problem the damage is limited to a local area not as in this case from Leeds to the North Sea.  ReBund is a modular bunding system designed from recycled plastics.  Aside from preventing hazardous liquids leaving your premises ReBund is an "ecological" solution diverting many tonnes of plastic from landfill, helping you reduce carbon emissions and is less complex to install than similar concrete solutions.  With installations throughout the UK it is a proven system that can withstand more extreme temperatures than concrete and being modular can be adapted to almost any application you can think of.

Download the datasheet  Andel-PPL ReBund - recycled plastics, modular bunding system (866.34 kB)

Update:

21-Aug-2012

Environment Agency officers today announced they may have found the source of the major oil spill which covered 13 km of the River Aire from bank to bank at the weekend, between Leeds and Castleford.

Mark West of the Environment Agency said: “It’s too soon to be absolutely certain, but we have been working closely with the Police, and have found a very strong lead. We’re continuing to investigate and the company involved is co-operating fully. We believe around 5,000 gallons of oil has leaked into the Aire from their oil tank.”

Businesses in the South Leeds area were yesterday asked by the Environment Agency to check their oil and fuel tanks in case a broken pipe or a leak had caused the problem. The serious pollution incident also meant that the company involved had lost thousands of pounds worth of oil.

Mark West went on to say: “What this underlines is the responsibility businesses have to safeguard their fuel tanks under the oils storage regulations.”

It is a legal requirement to provide adequate storage for oil. This includes the need to provide protective bunds or barriers that can collect spills and leaks. The Environment Agency provides guidance on their website on storing oil safely and complying with the legislation.

Environment Agency staff have been working with the Canal and Rivers Trust and contractors to soak up as much of the oil as possible, using absorbent booms and pads.

However the sheer quantity of oil in the fast-moving waters of the river and canal system means that a large part of it will be flushed downstream into the Humber. By this time it will be very dispersed and the risk to the environment will be greatly reduced.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/142260.aspx

In May of this year Andel Ltd exhibited at The Facilities Show at The NEC in Birmingham.  A successful show introduced our company and services to several new friends and we were able to catch up with some old ones too (you know who you are!).  Feeling generous we decided to have a no-obligation prize draw offering an Amazon Kindle to the lucky business card which we would draw after the show.

 Better late than never we have conducted a blind draw and one card was extracted from around 100 in the bag. What a controversial card it was too!  The card featured 2 names, one on each side.  The exhibition had run for three days and as we couldn't determine who had actually placed the card in the box we decided to upgrade our prize to TWO kindles!!

Congratulations to Mr. Cole and Mr. Wood of Royal Air Force Brize Norton who were pleased to be presented in person by Mark Harris their Kindles on August 8th.  We hope you enjoy your prizes.