Member Article

Young Entrepreneur Jet Sets to Canada for Development Mission

A young entrepreneur from Nottingham, who supplies the innovative Water-Gate flood barrier in the U.K, has visited the factory in Canada where it is manufactured to further build on his expert knowledge.

Simon Crowther, 23, formed Flood Protection Solutions Ltd five years ago, alongside studying for a degree in Civil Engineering. He became the sole UK importer of the Water-Gate from Megasecur. His business now has a turnover of almost £2 million and sells more than 500 barriers a year, with clients including Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency.

Simon, named Young Entrepreneur of The Year in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2016, spent ten days in Canada where he and other experts from across the globe visited the Megasecur Water-Gate factory.

Simon, who lives in Nottingham and has offices at the Colwick Industrial Estate, said: “The main aim of the visit was to share best practices across countries and to see how it can improve going forwards. We are currently investing heavily in product developments and supply chain improvements.

“Megasecur also invited Leslie Miller, an emergency preparedness coach from Portland in Oregon. We spent a week at the factory sharing best practises and coming up with new ideas. For example, we are releasing a new E-Learning platform to help people become competent with the product and standardise training. We also did filming with drones to show how to deploy a Water-Gate, along with an oil-spill response practice session in a river.

“There are lots of exciting developments including expansion plans to a larger factory to help meet demand and improve delivery times

Simon was impressed with the recycling methods they use at the factory. He said: “Megasecur are driving the environmental credentials of the industry forward. Any offcuts or spare parts from barriers are recycled and turned into recycled pavements. At Megasecur, it is a way of life, they don’t like waste.”

The Water-Gate is a temporary water barrier which once rolled out, self-deploys using the weight of the water to hold the water back. The barrier is 100 per cent recyclable and this gives the ability to take back barriers after their life of 10-20 years and recycle them.

Simon’s family invested in a Water-Gate barrier in 2007 following the flooding of their home. When floods hit again in 2012 the Water-Gate - which creates a temporary dam-like system - prevented the home from flooding. It was this that gave Simon the idea of importing the product to help others in the UK.

More information can be found at floodprotectionsolutions.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Poppy-PR .