Investment sees new jobs at Soar

Barnsley-based C Soar & Sons (UK) is involved in dismantling, recycling and disposing of redundant equipment, such as transformers, generators and switchgear, from the electricity industry. All but 1.5 per cent of materials end up being recycled.

The new investment has been at the company’s base in Tank Row, Stairfoot, which has been bolstered by business support organisation Enterprising Barnsley. With the extra ten jobs created as a result of the expansion, the firm now employs 50 people.

C Soar & Sons, which used to also have a site on Upper Sheffield Road, recently bought two acres of former council land and an adjacent builders’ yard on Tank Row so it could extend and bring all of its operations on to one site.

Facilities have been redeveloped over 18 months, creating a six-acre site incorporating new offices, training rooms and a testing laboratory.

Turnover was £5m last year and, due to the expansion, it is expected to increase to £8m for this year.

Operations manager Dale Evans said: “Investing in facilities and staff to maintain the specialist engineering knowledge and logistics experience of our workforce has been of great importance to us, so we are extremely pleased that we have been able to achieve this expansion and remain in Barnsley.”

The firm was set up more than 50 years ago by the late Clarence Soar as a general scrap merchant, but he moved into dismantling electrical equipment, some of which was left from the Second World War. Sons Michael and Colin run the business today along with other members of the family.