Supplying the nation

In April 2004 Lagan Holdings Limited was restructured into five separate companies each following more closely its specific activities and in 2006 the Lagan companies reported a combined turnover of £333m.

The Armagh asphalt plant has been in operation for the past ten years

The five companies are known as Lagan Holdings, Lagan Cement Group, Lagan Brick, Lagan Developments and Lagan Homes. Each company pursues a policy of independent operation. Such self-sufficiency and autonomy enables individual companies to nurture long-term relationships with customers and to foresee and be responsive to local requirements.
Companies also benefit from ongoing reinvestment as well as the combined financial strength of their group, technical resources and shared intra-company expertise.

Lagan is highly active throughout Ireland, the UK and beyond. In international markets the civil engineering division continues to expand, providing a highly reputable service over a wide range of engineering disciplines.
Quarrying, Lagan’s original business activity retains a key role within the portfolio. Lagan produces in excess of 3.5 million tonnes of quarry material every year with reserves to serve the market well into the future. In addition to quarrying, the materials, cement and bricks divisions manufacture or supply bitumen, sand, cement, roof tiles, ready mix concrete, concrete blocks, bricks and clay products. The specialist piling, caps and beams division operates across Ireland, while there is also a mature property development and house building division.

A load of asphalt en route to another contract

Lagan Asphalt is the second largest surfacing company in the Republic of Ireland, carrying out asphalt contracting in conjunction with the supply arm, Irish Asphalt.
Conor Coleman has been with the company as a contracts manager for the past two years and he discussed his role and how this end of the business had become so successful.
There is four regional depots run by Lagan Asphalt and they are: Lagan South East in Bennettsbridge. Co. Kilkenny, Lagan South West in Tulla, Co. Clare and Armagh Asphalt, which operates from Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh. The four plants all produce high quality Bitumen Macadam and Asphalt surfacing.

A road being laid wiith products from Armagh asphalt

“Lagan Asphalt runs seven regional plants in the Republic of Ireland and one in Armagh, producing high quality bitumen macadam and asphalt surfacing materials for use by Lagan Asphalt and other customers including local authorities and private contractors. In addition, Quarry Division has three active quarries located in the Dublin, Duleek and Cork areas,” said Conor.
Work is carried out for a number of local authorities as well as commercial developers and private clients. Environmental initiatives include a trial section on the N2 which was completed for the National Roads Authority where 1 million glass bottles were crushed and recycled in the Macadam base course.

Lagan South East based outside Bennettsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, is an ideal location for servicing the South East Region with easy access to Counties Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary, Carlow and Laois.
Lagan South West is based near the town of Tulla in Co Clare, serving Galway, Clare, Limerick, South Offaly, South Tipperary, Kerry and Cork.
Armagh Asphalt supplies the border counties of Monaghan, Cavan, Louth and Meath.
Additional plants at Sligo, Dublin, Cork, Longford and Kinnegad enable Lagan to offer a wide supply base with Whitemountain Quarries, another Lagan company, serving the Northern market and Donegal.

Armagh asphalt is a subsidiary of the Lagan Group

“The Armagh Asphalt plant was involved in the construction of the Dundalk to Newry motorway, while there were also overlays done on the Monaghan bypass. We commenced work on the A1/M1 Dundalk to Newry project in October 2006. The road opened in early August 2007 by which time there was approximately 150,000 tons of base and binder materials and 30,000 tons of Tex-surf laid. Tex-surf is a Lagan developed thin surface course material with HAPAS accreditation. All of the materials used on this project were manufactured at our Armagh Asphalt production facility.

“The plant in Armagh has been operating for the past ten years now and covers a wide area. The Plant manager is Robert Campbell and Brian McManus is the Regional manager, while contracts supervisor is James McManus. There is a steady enough stream of work there and it has been involved with many local authorities on various projects down through the years.
“My role entails pricing work and laying out programmes for the various projects that we would be involved in, which covers the North East region.

Recently completed and current projects from their various asphalt depots include: Armagh: Dundalk, Western Bypass, N1 and A1-N1 Dundalk to Newry. Dublin: Dublin Port Tunnel, work for local authorities, commercial and residential developers. Kilkenny: Ring road N76. Cork: N25 Kinsale Road Interchange, M8 Fermoy Bypass. Kinnegad: Kinnegad-Kilcock M6 Motorway, Kinnegad-Kilbeggan N6 Dual Carriageway. Clare: N18 Ennis Bypass, Loughrea Bypass

“Some of the contracts that we are due to begin include the Kilbeggan to Athlone N6 Dual Carriageway from which materials will be used from the Kinnegad plant and the final phase of the Limerick bypass/Shannon tunnel and this will come from the Clare depot.”
Lagan has provided a top quality service to a massive customer base not only in Ireland and the U.K but across Europe also. Its reputation certainly precedes itself through the excellent workmanship produced on the many hundreds of projects that the company has been involved in down through the years.
There is no doubt that the Lagan Group can maintain the excellent standard that has been set by the firm and continue to offer efficiency of the highest order to future customers.