Early years
Roperhurst Limited was founded in 1976 in Cardiff Docks by Messrs Mann, Handley, Davies and Lynch, and the company spent the first 25 years of its life in a building from the Victorian era in Collingdon Road.
In 1991, when Cardiff was upgrading its docklands to what is now Cardiff Bay, Collingdon Road was scheduled for demolition and the company took the opportunity to move to more modern premises in Barry.
Consolidation and growth
Under Graham Handley’s leadership, the company established itself as a major player in the UK plastic fabrication market. Graham himself had chaired the HVCA’s technical committee which published DW154 in 2000, the UK Specification for Plastics Ductwork.
In 2008, Graham Handley, the last of the four founders, retired. It is a testament to Graham’s leadership that the last job he managed for the company saw a team of six sent to Melbourne Australia for a month to carry out specialist repairs to a pickle line in the steelworks. Roperhurst had reached well beyond his original ambitions.
Major investment
In 2015, following a sustained period of growth the company relocated again. This time it remained within Barry, but moved to premises more than double in size, which allowed for investment in leading edge plastic fabrication technology, including a 4m butt welding machine, a CNC machine, a multi-wire hot line bender, as well as providing a modern environment for its growing workforce.
Technical leadership
The investment in scale and technology meant that Roperhurst could take on more challenging projects, moving us away from many companies we might previously have considered competitors.
Roperhurst’s involvement with HVCA (now BESA) continued. Bob Lane was Chairman of the UK ductwork group which published the revision to DW144, the UK Specification for Sheet Metal Ductwork, in 2013, and Phillipe de Wilde was part of the technical committee which published in 2020 TR/40 A guide to good practice for local exhaust ventilation.
Award winning
In 2022 Roperhurst was proud to receive three accolades:
- BESA Wales Contractor of the Year
- Vale of Glamorgan Employer of the Year
- BESA National Contractor of the Year
These awards tell us that our corporate values are taking us in the right direction, but of course we can always do things better.
That’s why we remain committed to our purpose of providing a safe environment for our end users.
Roperhurst is proud to be part of the Safety Critical Plastic Solutions Group, which brings together under common leadership five leading UK plastics specialists:
- Roperhurst
- Industrial Engineering Plastics (IEP)
- Plastratum
- Red 14 Plastics
- Marcol Fabrications
With a combined 45,000sq ft of specialist production space across four sites in England and Wales, more than 50 staff including over 30 plastics specialists and a combined 100 years of trading, the group is expertly positioned to support clients through complex plastic engineering projects.