Oz expansion is a wizard move for South Tyneside's Wescott Industrial Services

The firm has set up an Australian subsidiary company in a bold expansion designed to take advantage of the huge potential of the Australian coatings sector.

Mark Duffy, Wescott’s Managing Director explained the move: “As part of our strategic growth and development plan, we identified numerous markets around the world and, due to the skills shortage and high amount of project work to complete over the next 20 years, made the decision to invest in Australia.

“We are now offering our specialist services in coatings and access in Australia with our local partners, Clean and Gone, who specialise in asbestos removal, insulation and fabrication.

“Wescott Industrial Services Australia will add significant benefit to the Wescott Group and ensure we meet our growth targets over the next three years.

“We have had numerous meetings with large blue chip organisations in the oil and gas, marine, power and engineering industries, and become approved vendors for them. Withmore than $2,000,000 AUD of orders on the books for Q1 2019, we can hit the ground running and make an impact in Australia straight away.

“There’s enormous potential over there and whilst we’ll initially be taking over our own supervisory staff, we intend to start a major training programme to get the Australian operatives up to the quality level our customers over here expect. In essence, we hope to have a mirror of our operations over here so we can offer a universally high quality service of innovative solutions on a global scale, allowing us to access the overseas offices of our existing clients.”

“Following the tragedy of the Morandi Bridge collapse in Genoa, there’s also enormous concern throughout the country, and indeed all over the world, about the inherent problems of corrosion of metal cables within concrete. One of our areas of expertise is knowledge and treatment of Corrosion Under Insulation so we are also looking at projects where this may become a crucial factor.

“We’re also in the running for several high profile projects around Queensland, in addition to a large jetty refurbishment contract.”

The company has opened its first Australian office in Melbourne and already equipped the new operation with more than $150,000 AUD of new equipment.