WET News

INTERVIEW Wright direction opportunity to be there with the companies we currently work with in AMP7 and beyond," he tells WET News. "Our clients are relatively few in number and so that gives us long-term relationships that we need to build, and it's a marriage with those clients. We need to make sure we are commercially sound and offer value for money, innovative solutions, and our s a f e t y r e c o r d h a s go t t o b e world class. "We've been in it for 15 years up to now and our aim is to keep those relationships going AMP after AMP after AMP." Whittle, who was handed his first managerial role at Eric Wright a decade ago, has witnessed the "huge growth" of the company at first hand, including the acquisi- tion of Site Electrical in 2010, w h i c h g av e t h e b u s i n e s s a mechanical and electrical opera- tional arm. Eric Wright Group's offices in Bamber Bridge near Preston • Eric Wright Water's new managing director, Neal Whittle, discusses the importance of delivering on existing frameworks in a challenging market N eal Whittle joined Eric Wright Group as a quantity surveyor when its water operation was a £3 million busi- ness in 2003. Fifteen years on, he has just been promoted to manag- ing director of Eric Wright Water, a £45 million company in its own right with a stated ambition to become a leader in its field. The business already has fr amework agreements with United Utilities, C2V, Yorkshire Water, Scottish Water and Severn Trent, and Whittle hopes agree- ments can be reached with other companies with AMP7 on the horizon. However, in a highly competi- tive marketplace, Whittle stresses that the primary focus at this stage is on ensuring existing relation- ships remain positive. "Our main priority is to make sure we are providing great service and cost-effective solutions so that w e g iv e o u r s e l v e s t h e b e s t His previous role was senior director of the water and civil engi- neering business but, with Eric Wright Group having made the decision to separate water from the civil engineering arm two years ago, his new job gives him a more specific line of focus. "The water business was grow- ing quite quickly from roughly £20 million to £40 million over the couple of years from 2014 to 2016 and it just became a natural move," he says. "I needed to focus on the water business because it was growing and getting busier." In his new position, Whittle will aim to ensure Eric Wright Water devotes the time and energy r e q u i r e d t o m e e t c l i e n t s ' expectations. "Reputation is everything for us," he says. "Service is every- thing. Customer service for the water companies that we work for is massive. "We've got to make sure that we are easy to work with, we do what we say we're going to do, and when there's a problem we react in the right way and make sure we come up with the right solution." He is satisfied that the com- pany is moving in the right direc- tion and hopes that it can reach t h e n e x t l e v e l i n t h e n e x t decade. "At the level we work at – and we're not at the tier one level – I would suggest we are one of the leaders in that field," he says. "Ultimately the ambition down the road is to have a seat at the table on some of the major frameworks with the water companies. That's probably in AMPs beyond AMP7." Whittle is also confident the business, which is 100 per cent owned by the charitable Eric Wright Trust, is in a "good space" with its existing frameworks. A particular highlight of the business' recent work was a pro- ject for United Utilities that Eric 12 WET NEWS APRIL 2018 | wwtonline.co.uk

• Cover