One of our key objectives is to provide opportunties to help local business grow. Around 85% (5,176) of our existing approved suppliers nationally are SMEs and our yearly spend with them is over £430 million.
We are working to build a stronger understanding of our supply chain to identify local SMEs, minority owned/led businesses and social enterprises to enable us to specify them within our online portal to be invited to tender.
Where possible, we try to engage with hard to reach communities. On the National Highways‘ Area 7 works in Leicester, for example, we approached local Sikh temples to engage with community leaders to encourage individuals to access employment opportunities. This resulted in a local member of the community working with us to establish his business as a franchisee haulier. He now operates several franchises with Hanson which provides further employment opportunities to his local community.
