Meet the business that digs out the gritters...

You know the snow is bad when even a gritting lorry gets stuck in it - and when that happens you need some serious pulling power to salvage the situation.

When a gritter became stranded in the Warwickshire countryside in the snowdrifts of late February, it was Napton-based B-Line who were called upon to supply the required pulling power.

The longstanding family-firm went to the rescue with one of its fleet of 57 vehicles, a fleet which recently expanded as the company continues to grow - with important support from Warwickshire County Council.

B-Line, which specialises in plant hire and civil engineering projects, is one of Warwickshire's unsung business success stories.

Like many companies in that sector, they were hit hard by the crash ten years ago and the workforce shrank from 40 to six. But for father and son Bill, who founded the company, and Danny Line, "failure was not an option."

They possessed the resilience to keep going through the harder times - and now the corner has been well and truly turned with the workface back up over 50 and working on some large-scale projects across the region.

Alongside the small matter of rescuing gritters, B-Line has major contracts with, among others, Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin, the Highways Agency and HS2.
That resilience was vital to the company's resurgence, alongside expertise and experience forged over decades. But also a big help was Warwickshire County Council's support which enabled them to make a substantial investment of £115,000 into new plant and, just as importantly, some guidance from council business support advisor Jagdish Soor.

"The support from the council has been fantastic," said Danny Line. "Jagdish really knows his stuff and spent a lot of time talking us through ways we might grow. We have built up again since the crash and things are going okay but you always need to keep looking ahead and have a strategy in place. Jagdish has a lot of ideas for that.

"With all this support we are now pleased that our entire fleet is heading towards Bronze FORS accreditation and the new, state-of-the-art lorry is fitted with all the security devices complies to a Silver FORS accreditation. It is a fantastic vehicle, the flagship of our fleet, which will enable us to fulfil more contracts and hopefully employ more people as we continue to grow."

Jagdish Soor said: "It has been a pleasure to work with B-Line, a business which weathered the recession, built up again and shown a really proactive approach to targeting more growth.

"They are an unseen success story of the Warwickshire business community and, with their forward-thinking approach, are well-placed to remain one."