Charlesworth goes it alone
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• Phil Charlesworth has left Neville Charrold to set up his own aluminium tipping trailer and bodybuilding company, called Charlesworth Transport Engineering, based in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Charlesworth, 58, has been managing director of Neville Charrold for the past 20 years and he finally parted company two weeks ago to take early retirement and a golden handshake. Following York's recent management buyout, Charlesworth felt that he would be better suited to a small operation again, and he will be keeping alive a 10-man satellite, which Neville Charrold opened up in Newark last November to cope with overspill from its main Mansfield factory.
He does not want to poach former Neville Charrold customers, however: "I just want people to come to me for business," he says. Newark goes into operation on 1 August. Directors of the new company will be: Charlesworth, who will own the company; his wife, who will also be company secretary; his son Philip, who will help in sales, and daughter Denise; and James Lee, who is chairman and managing director of a large steel stocking company in Newark.
Charlesworth says the link with Lee does not signify any kind of reversion from aluminium to steel. All the products will be aluminium-based using Charlesworth's many years' experience working with aluminium, for companies such as Land Rover and Alcan, as well as Neville Charrold.
The first products will be built to order in the third week of August, and Charlesworth is planning a major launch. "We shall be building to order, like bespoke tailoring," he says, "and we will be offering very quick deliveries."
Charlesworth clearly believes there is room in the market for two manufacturers of smooth-sided aluminium tipper bodies. When he was with Neville Charrold he says that the company had a 22-week waiting list for its Ultralite tippers, even in the depths of the 1980 recession.
It was Charlesworth who first developed the Ultralite body for Neville Charrold and since 1976 the company has built well over 4,000 units. His design for the Ultralite won Charlesworth the Design Council award in the same year.
Neville Charrold was until recently part of the Bunzl Group, but was included in the £25 million York management buyout from Bunzl.