We won contracts for demolitions and land remediation at football stadia that were the homes of Coventry City, the complete demolition of the Highfield Road Stadium Coventry. For West Bromwich Albion for the demolition of the Rainbow Stand at the Hawthorns Stadium, West Bromwich, then most pleasing of all, my being a Birmingham City Supporter, was the demolition of the substantial Trinity Road Stand at Villa Park, home to Aston Villa.  This was our first move into more specialist and complex demolition.

Blowing the final whistle of Aston Villa’s Trinity Road Stand. One of Coleman’s more satisfying projects. Good result.

We were also extensively involved with the early stages of the redevelopment of Warwickshire County Cricket Ground at Edgbaston. A successful contract for bulk excavation works and associated piling for the new Touchwood Court Shopping Centre, Solihull generated circa 80,000m3 of materials for disposal, this blended in with our activities. All materials generated by those works were recycled and reused on other construction projects.

We decided that the time was right to change the company name from Coleman & Company (Plant Hire) Ltd. to Coleman & Company Ltd., because the words `plant hire` were becoming restrictive in allowing opportunities to continue to expand into new areas. Unfortunately the name Coleman & Company Ltd was owned by Reckitt Benckiser Ltd. which was a hundred year old company. We could not get any response from the Reckitt Benckiser Company Secretary, so shares were purchased; the Company Secretary then had to speak to “a Shareholder”. We brokered a deal for the name but their price for the company number, we considered to be too high. The name change took place on 7^th March 2002. (`Plant Hire` was transferred to another Coleman subsidiary.) We later sold the Reckitt Benckiser shares at a good profit, so it proved to be a `win win` situation.

The Company was by now extensively committed to recycling, producing approximately 350,000 tonnes of D.O.T Specification compliant aggregates per year. The contract for Sandwell, the Lea Bank demolitions and land reclamations, were a good base. In 2005 we won a major contract from Balfour Beatty for large volume earthmoving at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, also contracts for difficult excavation works for new office developments in Birmingham and the larger West Midlands area.  Our business was starting to grow.

Why not learn more about the demolition, earth works or recycling services we offer?