In 2014 Angus Fire was purchased from Kiddie Products, via a private management buy out, by a little known CEO called Paul Williams and Lloyds Group Equity management.
In my opinion there has been many unseen and unspoken dodgy dealings within the walls of the firm since 2014, from some Union Reps being nothing more than the right hand men of the management, to requests from the GM at the time (in eMail), to avoid paying import duty sending Computers to their offices in Thailand (he was given a golden handshake and asked to leave).
Safety Violations, including the computer that was supposed to be recording the emmissions from their chimmney stack hadn’t been working and the Maintenance Manager had been Fudging the results. I was not being allowed to fix the computer despite months of me trying to persuade the IT Manager, and the roof from Long Vulc (where the hose goes through part of the process) it’s said that the roof had been reported for being unsafe and this was known by the CEO it was going to happen and ignored until it did happen. It’s not only its staff Angus puts at risk, but nearby residents.
I’ve been involved in helping someone whose car was damaged by a falling roof tile from one of the non maintained buildings in Angus’s possesion, who them claimed “that it couldn’t have been a tile from their roof as our properties are all maintened” which is just not true at all.
Link to the original Guradian Article ;
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/24/yorkshire-town-angus-fire-bentham-forever-chemicals-pfas?mibextid=xfxF2i
All this goes on amid cost cutting, staff cutting and with Tens of Millions of pounds in payments of “loans interest” being paid to the Directors (available on companies house) and Includes payments to Lloyds Group equity partnership who has controlling interest.
After leaving, during the Employment Tribunal I exposed that the company may have been fiddling staff out of money they were owed through remaining holiday pay, short changing people who’d been made redundant (see my employment tribunal report. I was then threatened by their “in house counsel” for trying to help others claim the money they maybe owed, they even threatened legal action on the local ‘paper’ the Bentham News to take out an Advert I had paid for myself.
I told Nick (Nicholas) Brown (in house Legal Counsel at the time) this information was public knowledge and if they believed I was breaking the law, they can silence me by a court order ~ nothing happened, go figure.
Despite all this it is still said that Angus is the best employer in the town (by Angus Fire), the biggest maybe but no where near the best in my experience. Most people now employed by the company (especially in the office) come from outside Bentham.
I know most of this happened, I worked there from Mid June 2014 in the Computer (I.T. Department) and whistle blew to the Environment Agency and HMRC about the dodgy work practises going on.
This May in 2024 the same article in the Guardian blew the lid off probably the biggest failure of the Enviornment Agency, and United Utilities about PFAs or forever chemicals which Angus made at the Bentham plant,from 1970 until 2022, well into Angus Intrernational Safety Groups ownership of the Angus Plant.
As someone who lives in Bentham, the smell from the stack is probably the worst smell I’ve ever smelled, and it wafts across the town if the wind is blowing in the right direction and there are days when we can’t put our washing out due to the test of the foams, which creates pitch black acrid smoke from their foam test pit spilling across the town.
With regards to the final statement from Angus Fire, all I can say is from an ex-employees prospective, When I was there) it is the biggest load of cods whallop I’ve heard since Rushi Sunak started making Election Promises. The claims of transparency from the “Spoke person” for Angus Fire in Bentham, it seems that the company is as transparent as black paint.
https://www.endsreport.com/article/1874595/ends-angus-fire-investigation-need-know
An Angus Fire spokesperson said: “As Bentham’s biggest employer, we actively address all concerns related to local environmental impact and compliance. We are committed to continuous improvement in our operations, transparency, and working collaboratively with regulatory bodies to protect public health and the environment.”
Who is Ends?
The ENDS Report is the UK’s No 1 source of intelligence for environmental professionals, delivering news, analysis and reference across the carbon, environmental and sustainability agenda.
With over 40 years of industry knowledge, the editorial team delivers expert knowledge that helps you manage costs and risks around environmental factors and identify new business opportunities.
so all in all is a repretable source of information.
https://www.endsreport.com/article/1874595/ends-angus-fire-investigation-need-know
If the link becomes inactive, the pdf can be found here
We wait to see if Law suits will follow with the deep pockets of Equity owners, Lloyds Group Equity (who has controlling Interest – or PSC) and how many millions this will run into.
Updates: Change to title, addition of the link to the Guardians Article, addition and changes to some of the text to show my experieince of working with “The foam manufacturing plant in Bentham”.