Concrete Plans: A&L McCrae Launches State-of-the-Art Plant at Barrachander Quarry.

The opening of A&L McCrae’s second concrete plant this month followed an exciting announcement in December. "We have entered into a long-term partnership agreement with MacLeod Construction Ltd to operate the Achnaba hard rock quarry and Kilmartin sand and gravel quarry," A&L McCrae said, "bringing our commercial quarrying operations to three hard rock quarries and two sand and gravel quarries across Argyll.

"We would like to thank the MacLeod family, another long-standing multi-generational Argyll company, in entrusting us with their quarries. We believe this will be of great benefit to the Argyll region with an improved service offering for a wider market. This deal will allow us to bring our full product offering across the whole of Argyll, both for certified aggregates, bagged products, sand and gravel, and certified ready-mix concrete.
"We will now cover from Campbeltown to North Argyll and the Islands, we will service any orders of any size with high quality, high PSV stone, and ready mix concrete."

Speaking at the opening of their latest concrete plant, Calum McCrae, managing director of A&L McCrae Limited and Barrachander Quarry Limited, explained: "We produce all of our own aggregates, all of our own washed sands and gravels, so we can control the process from start to finish from the quarries to the concrete. We can supply any structural concrete, for any projects across Argyll, and in any volumes.
"The ready-mix side of our business has doubled in the past year. We’ve employed 21 more people in Argyll over the past year, and we’re about to advertise for another 15 in the next coming months.

“This is our second production batching plant we’ve brought into the Argyll market. With the success of the first concrete plant at our other quarry at Clachan, we’ve won large scale contracts over the next five to 10 years, so we had to up the production capacity for the company. We bought the second Semix plant, and we’ve got another one coming at the end of February and March to Achnaba Quarry, Lochgilphead. “We have the capacity to run 7 days a week, 24hrs a day to cover our emergency works contracts. So it’s been a huge effort from all the team and all the staff.

Now we’re operational, it’s a huge amount of hard work. It really is a team effort from everybody to get us to where it is just now. “I would just like to say thank you to all of our team, all of our suppliers, all of our local customers and all of our large-scale customers. We supply stone and concrete to the local builders that come in for half a tonne of sand or half a cube of concrete as well as large major infrastructure works that need aggregate and concrete across Argyll.

"So from large to small, I’d like to say thank you for supporting us, and we’ll hopefully get bigger and better."
After opening the new concrete plant, the MP for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber, Brendan O’Hara, said A&L McCrae "are a really good example of a business that is doing great work in Argyll and Bute.
"They are employing local people, they are recycling existing stone to be reused in other areas, and they are creating jobs, they are creating wealth, they are creating growth, and I’m delighted to be part of it.
"It’s absolutely essential that if Argyll and Bute is to avoid becoming a retirement home for the wealthy and the elderly, then we need jobs, we need well-paid jobs, we need sustainable jobs.
"It’s the only way that we are going to attract people to come and live and work, put down roots, and raise families in Argyll and Bute. The biggest challenge we face is depopulation, and the best way to counter that is to create jobs.

"That’s what A&L McCrae are doing with this quarry and other quarries, and that’s why, when they asked me to come along, I was delighted to accept because it’s exactly what Argyll and Bute needs."

A&L McCrae - Established for over 50 years on the West Coast and throughout Scotland
Contractors, Plant Hire, Aggregates, Ready-mix Concrete, Sand & Gravel. 

Full UKAS laboratory and concrete testing available. 
T: 01866 833 355
almccrae.com