Enterprise of the month

There are some innovative people in and around the National Park. Every month we will be highlighting businesses or community enterprises whose great ideas about sustainable living and working have merited support from our grant funding and specialist expertise. This month we are focusing on Timber Mediators ...

Amount awarded: £10,000

Nobody can accuse Steve Billany of failing to see the wood for the trees. He saw the big picture of trees being sent by councils to landfill and came up with an eco-friendly, thoughtful alternative. He would transport the trees instead and recycle the timber into logs and kindling wood.

Timber Mediators

Aged 50 and a production worker at Egger’s chipboard plant in Hexham, he was not a natural entrepreneur so he needed help to turn his business vision into reality.

Business Link gave him advice and he also received a grant of £10,000 from the Sustainable Development Fund towards the cost of a log splitting machine, log deck and conveyor system.

With two partners, he acquired premises at the Wrytree Driftmine Colliery Yard, near Haltwhistle, and began trading in October 2006. Within a year his business, Timber Mediator Recycling Solutions, had become an outrageous success story.

Some 100,000 bags of logs, weighing between seven and ten kilos, had been produced and sold through a distributor, Rectella International Ltd., to supermarkets and garages.

The two partners had been bought out, eight new jobs created and a truck, tractor, two forklifts, a compressor, a caravan and two chainsaws bought for cash.  Steve also invested in eight kilns and is now the largest producer of charcoal, using traditional methods, north of Manchester, producing 10,000 units in his first year. His business is also certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

“It’s gone incredibly well but I still have a lot to learn as a businessman,” he said. “That’s why I appreciate the help I get from the National Park’s Community Enterprise Officer, Colin Earnshaw for giving me confidence to take the business forward. We keep in regular contact and he’s always happy to give me advice.”