Bizstartup.ie - NewsInnovative start-up offers road maintenance savings

John Britton set up the company with his brother Adrian in 2008. “I had been working in Dublin with a road sweeping company and my brother had been in the quarry business for years in Donegal. I moved back to Donegal and we were looking for something we could do together,” John Britton explains.

“Quarry materials were going onto the roads and with the building boom a lot of roads had gotten out of shape. We saw an opportunity to recycle what was there already.”

The Brittons researched what they would need to achieve this, went to Austria to view the latest machinery in action and were very impressed with it.

“We purchased the machinery, which was extremely expensive at the time and then you needed to pay for the power factor behind it.” They put up some money themselves, got a grant from the local enterprise board and borrowed the rest from the bank. “The bank was impressed when they saw what we could do,” says Britton.

From there, the Brittons went around the country approaching county councils to try to get work from them. “Our first client, Donegal County Council, said they wanted to see it working, so we had to find an area to show them. Eventually we got our first job on Aranmore Island and another job in Donegal followed. In 2009, Clare County Council contracted us to do work and it’s gone on from there to all around the country,” Britton explains.

The process involves exposing the stone on the road, using a ripper and then a crusher mounted on a specialised tractor. “The stone is crushed to a uniform size, then we grade and compact it and it’s ready to be used to resurface the area,” says Britton.

Road Team won an innovation award at the 2010 Enterprising Donegal Business Awards recently.