News

COVID- 19

We are all aware of the current state of what is a Global Pandemic, At these times of uncertainty we felt it to be best to address this to our valued customers, staff and local communities.

At this moment in time it’s business as usual here at The Armstrongs Group, but we thought it is important for our customers and staff to know that we are prepared and taking the necessary precautions to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.

We are following the daily updating government guidelines and the safety of our staff and customers is paramount. At present all our staff are reported fit and healthy, and actions have been taken to safeguard that. If any staff are reported to show any symptoms this will be dealt with in accordance to government recommendations. Likewise, we urge transparency from all our staff and customers , and ask to be notified immediately if they, anyone in their household- or anyone they have come into contact with- are diagnosed or showing symptoms of the virus.

We will be paying close attention to the daily government updates and if these are likely to disrupt our services customers will be contacted immediately to discuss the options available.

However, As part of the measures we have put in place to limit the impact of Covid-19 on the business we are asking our drivers to keep their contact with third parties to an absolute minimum.

Finally, We urge everyone to be kind in these times of uncertainty, Look out for one another and follow the governments daily updates and recommendations.

You can find more information on our business operations during the COVID-19 outbreak here on our website, or across our Social Media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

The Armstrongs Group

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As part of our ongoing efforts to continually improve our working practice we are delighted to announce that Armstrongs Aggregates LTD is now FORS accredited.

The Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) is a voluntary accreditation scheme for fleet operators which aims to raise the level of quality within fleet operations.

Achieving our FORS accreditation demonstrates our long term commitment to our customers, staff and the industry; as an industry pace setter and a leader in fleet transport best practice.

Instilling a mindset of continual improvement, joining an elite group of operators that boast exemplary levels of safety, efficiency and environmental awareness.

Our high standard of reliability and service is driven by an excellent team of fully qualified drivers, along with a strong safety record. Our new tracking system will facilitate the constant monitoring of driving styles to enhance this further.

Our vehicles and trailers are serviced in line with regulations by our own workshops, consisting of a versatile and experienced team of fitters. Notwithstanding our work we are also very conscious of cleanliness and appearance and our drivers are responsible for their own vehicles.

The Armstrong group strongly believe in owning vehicles, as it caters for maximum flexibility and allows us to continuously strive to improve our fleet and services.

For more information on our fleet, or to keep up to date with our company news you can follow our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

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Firstly, we want to wish all our customers, staff and local communities a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy New Year! Everyone at Armstrongs from Aggregates to AMIX would like to thank our customers and communities for another excellent year.  We look forward to working with existing and new customers and people in our communities in 2020. Please see below our Christmas opening hours.

 

What are our Christmas Opening Hours?

The Armstrongs festive break comes into effect from 6PM on Monday 23rd December and will reopen at 7AM on Friday 3rd January.

There will be limited staff on site across this period so the best way to contact us would be via email. We will do our best to get back to you in a timely manner.

 

Our Year in the Community

Over the past year you will have seen that we have continued to improve on and increase our work in our local communities, building on last years successes.  We have continued to worked closely with Bolton Sixth Form College to provide work experience opportunities to students, with Rico our second work experience student currently entering his second month. We are also proud to have helped restore Rivington Terraced gardens to former glories with the (re)creation of the famous sundial, which is now taking pride of place on Orchestra Lawn.

Thank You to Our Staff

Our staff have worked tirelessly all year round to provide high quality products and services and we would like to thank them for such a brilliant year. We hope they enjoy their festive break. We could not provide the high quality products and service without them.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

We would like to wish our entire Armstrongs family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to your return in the New Year.

If you have any queries or questions for us over the festive period you can email us on enquiries@armstrongsgroup.com  and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Merry Christmas.

Armstrongs Aggregates, Armstrongs Stone & AMIX RMC

 

 

 

 

 

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On November 2nd 2019 we were honoured to be present at the Rivington Terraced Gardens where their new sundial, created by stonemasons from Armstrongs Stone, was unveiled at a small ceremony on the Orchestra Lawn.

Rivington Terraced Gardens is a unique and wonderful place and is in the care of Rivington Heritage trust, a registered charity. There is nowhere else like it in the world with its magical pathways, stairways and iconic structures. The gardens are well-known and well-loved throughout the region and are in an exciting period of change following the £4.2 million conservation and repair project, part funded by the National Lottery heritage Fund.

The Gardens

The Bolton News described the Gardens below.

“When Rivington Terraced Gardens were originally created for Lord Leverhulme in the early 1900s, a sundial had stood on the corner of the Orchestra Lawn.

Following Lord Leverhulme’s death in 1925, the lavishly beautiful gardens fell into decline and the sundial disappeared.

All that remained of the sundial was the circular stone plinth that it once sat upon.

As part of the ongoing work being undertaken to preserve and protect the Gardens, a new sundial based on the original design has been unveiled. The Sundial is dedicated to the 600 plus volunteers who have spent countless hours helping restore the gardens to former glory.

Groundwork Heritage Manager Andrew Suter told the Bolton News: “Our volunteers are an amazingly dedicated group of people and it’s thanks to their hard work that we’ve been able to fund this piece of work. The sundial doesn’t just restore an important feature from the Gardens’ history but will also be a lasting testament to the role of local volunteers in helping to safeguard their future.”

Armstrongs Stone are specialists in renovation, restoration and new builds, you   can find more of our work here. You can also contact us on enquiries@armstrongsstone.com or on 01204 668 021.

You can also keep up to date with all news and updates across the Armstrongs Group on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.

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Our transport fleet has grown immensely over recent years, and continual investment by the Armstrong Group ensures we maintain maximum efficiency and reliability, whilst also meeting our environmental commitments. This week we took delivery of two new Scania P410 XT series wagons. The Scania P-series cab provides a combination of space and security, with easy cab access ideal multi-drop duties. The P series delivers really powerful, frugal, fuss-free performance, backed by the latest and cleanest Euro 5 SCR technology.

Armstrongs tradition dictates that our wagons are named after racehorses, and these wagons are no different.

“Gritstone” and “Lyons Lane” join our existing fleet of tippers, with their truck bodies built by Marshalls.

Marshalls Truck Bodies is one of the North West’s leading commercial vehicle body builders. They provide premium quality, fully bespoke bodies to a wide range of customers, including many major UK fleets.

Their advanced in-house technology allows us to deliver contemporary, creative designs for all requirements. We also only work with major UK manufacturers of parts, trucks and materials – ensuring strength, reliability and longevity in every body we build.

Armstrongs fleet of Wagons consist wholly of Scania’s who offer excellent service and product to the Group, and we are proud to have worked alongside them for a number of years. The aggregates business utilise 8 wheel tipper wagons for maximum flexibility and articulated tippers for maximum load carrying. We also have artic tipping trailers, flat trailers for transporting aggregates and low loaders for the transportation of equipment.

The Armstrong group strongly believe in owning vehicles, plant and equipment as it caters for maximum flexibility and demonstrates our long term commitment to our customers, staff and the industry. You can find out about our entire fleet on our blog here.

For the latest news and information from The Armstrong Group subscribe to our social platforms on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

 

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A little more history behind our Pilkington Quarry was revealed today as we came across a brilliant article dated over 100 hundred years ago!

Below is the transcript from an article dated 1888 illustrating the extraction of stone from our Pilkington Quarry in Horwich.

Pilkington Quarry covers 53 acres near the town of Horwich and was operational for over one hundred years.

Pilkington 1 is exhausted but carries permissions to receive 2m tonnes of inert waste, whilst Pilkington 2 is as yet unmined but carries a pale buff/brown, highly durable gritstone.

The Article below reads as following:

“The manufacturer and Builder 1888

A Huge Stone

There was recently cut out from the Pilkington quarry, Harwich, England, in one piece, without crack or flaw, a great block of stone weighing upward of thirty five tons.
The dimensions are 14 ½ feet in length, 6 feet high, and 5 feet 3 inches wide.

The removal of this huge mass from its bed in the quarry to its destination- a bleach works in Bolton, a distance of seven miles over rough, hilly road- was successfully accomplished in the manner shown in our illustration, by the phoenix steam and boiler company, of Bolton, under the direction of H. W. Rushton. The London Engineer remarks it is said to be the largest block of stone ever quarried in England”

 

 

If you have any knowledge of local history surrounding our quarries that you want to share with us you can do so here.

You can keep up to date with all our latest news across our website, Facebook and Twitter.

 

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At Armstrongs we always strive to provide top quality customer service and products. From our wide range of aggregates to our ready mix concrete and bespoke cut stone, our aim is to provide the best available product we can.

That is why over the past months we have been searching for new ways to give you faster and cleaner customer service. Starting on Monday 4th March our website will now have an instant live chat feature.

When you log onto the website you will find the chat icon in the bottom right corner. Give it a click and connect to a member of our staff instantly.

From there we will be able to answer any enquiries, connect you to the right people within our business and provide faster and more efficient service to you.

Happy chatting!

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Christmas is a time for family and the community. Over the past few months we have been investing our time and efforts heavily into our local communities. Armstrongs were first approached by the lovely people at The Media Village to take part in their Food Bank Donations drive.

The Media Village

We first met The Media Village through the #BoltonTweetUp Twitter chat for local businesses and quickly developed a working relationship with them. We are humbled to have been approached by them to take part in this wonderful cause.

The idea was a fairly simple one. A reverse advent calendar. Each day we donated one item to the box for 25 day . However we couldn’t stick to that rule and ended up donating so much more. As a result of this we ended up with two full boxes of food to donate.

Once the boxes were wrapped one was collected by The Media Village and the other was donated to Bolton Lads and Girls Club.

Bolton Lads And Girls Club

A few weeks ago, I was humbled to be invited to BLGC to have a look around and to discover about the great work they do for the community. I was told about their food banks, their clothing banks and their different activities we could get involved in.

Last week, Andy and Dora from BLGC came in for a brew.They collected the donations box. Whilst here they told us all about the good work they are doing for local people. As a result of this we will be working closely with BLGC in the future to provide enriching activities and experiences to those who use their services. We are looking forward to working with them in our local community.

You can find out more about our work in the community across our social channels. On Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Here at Armstrongs our community always try to do their best with contributing to charities and helping others. So we thought it would be important to keep you updated of what our team have been doing to support charities, such as Macmillan and Movember.

Movember

At the beginning of November, Emma Highton from our accounts team started to raise money for Movember. Movember is the leading charity for men’s health, and Emma took part in a 10k run. Emma managed to raise £55 for Movember and also achieved a personal best time of 1 hour 5 minutes and 21 seconds, which is amazing!

Everyone at Armstrongs is very proud and cannot wait to do more for this great charity.

Macmillan Cancer Research

Tracy from our accounts team and her daughter took part in an 11 mile walk across Morecambe Bay in September. This was in support of Macmillan Cancer Research, which affects so many in the community.

Tracy and her team managed to raise a whopping £8,213.20. £300 of this money raised was donated to the Churchill Christie Unit at Bolton Hospital. They have also decided to donate water coolers to be put in the unit as well.

Macmillan Coffee Morning Coming Soon!

Keep an eye out for the total amount which we raised on our Macmillan Coffee Morning. We will be releasing this very soon, as we are very proud of supporting this cause. You can find a link to our Macmillan Coffee Morning news article HERE!

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