Operating across Ireland, Breedon’s quarries produce a range of essential materials for a variety of uses in roads, runways and general construction. There are four Breedon quarries in County Cork at present, including Bweeng Quarry, which produces high PSV aggregates. Building Ireland headed to the Rebel County for a chat with quarry manager Roy Willis.
Breedon Ireland is a leading supplier of construction materials including ready-mix concrete, limestone aggregates and concrete blocks in the Cork region and nationwide. Within the county confines, there are four Breedon Ireland quarries, located at Milebush, Rossmore, Glanworth and Bweeng.
Each of these facilities also boasts a concrete plant, with a fifth Breedon Ireland Cork concrete plant located at Coppeen, Enniskeane.
Breedon – whose network of quarries and downstream operations runs alongside a significant and highly regarded surfacing business – place great emphasis on achieving the highest quality standards for all products and are constantly striving to improve upon these standards through ongoing research and innovation.
Breedon produce a full range of high PSV (Polished Stone Value) aggregates for use in road and airfield construction and maintenance. To this end, Bweeng Quarry supplies high PSV aggregate (sand stone) for use in bituminous surface courses and surface dressing to Breedon Group’s asphalt manufacturing plants in Kilkenny, Clare and Cork (Rossmore), as well as local authorities.
Breedon’s high PSV aggregates, ranging from PSV55 to PSV68+, offer high skid resistance and low wear properties for high speed, high volume road surface coarse applications, ideal for busy motorways and airport runways.
Breedon supply a wide range of sizes, specifications and grades of high PSV, based on EN 13043 and Transport Infrastructure for Ireland (TII) requirements. These are used as constituents for bituminous mixtures, for surface dressing and for surface treatments, with all aggregates supported by the group’s own in-house technical team, which includes a UKAS accredited test laboratory.
With group revenue of £1.4b, more than 320 operational sites and approximately 3,700 employees, Breedon is a leading vertically-integrated construction materials group in Ireland and the UK, supplying the construction industry with the essential materials needed to build the places where we live, work and play – and the networks joining them together.
They use their core assets to produce valued-added downstream products, pulling through their aggregates and cement to deliver asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, surfacing solutions and specialist building products to the whole construction supply chain. They also deliver surfacing solutions as a further route to market for their essential construction materials.
Overseen by Fraser Thom, Regional Manager, Breedon Ireland supply the residential, commercial and agricultural sectors with a variety of ready-mixed concrete products, all of which are produced using their quarried limestone. Alongside their standard quality-assured mixes, they offer a range of high-performance concretes designed to meet the specific needs of any construction project
Ready-mixed concrete is designed on budget, on time and to meet the highest specifications each project demands. From prestige projects to small extensions, Breedon have the concrete to meet every requirement. All concrete is delivered by a fleet of modern trucks, several of which are fitted with conveyor belts and telescopic chutes.
Breedon also manufacture a wide range of concrete blocks, produced to the highest quality and standard using limestone aggregates sourced in their own quarries. Their onsite technician and laboratory continually test the concrete blocks to ensure that industry-leading reliability, strength and quality is consistently maintained.
As Bweeng Quarry manager for the past four years, Roy Willis oversees all aspects of daily activities at the busy facility. “We have a team of four here who work directly for Breedon as well as another six subcontractors,” he notes. “We are very busy at the moment, so we can’t complain.
“The roads side of things is very busy as we are still in peak season with the local authorities, which runs from February through until September and maybe even into October sometimes. When the tar plants are busy, so are we. We also supply contractors working in the construction of houses, etc. with other aggregates, such as S.R.21, T1, T0 and T2.
“Our priority is to extract the materials as safely and efficiently as possible, produce it and deliver it to our customers or sites as quickly as possible.”
Bweeng Quarry prides itself on producing quality material and its high PSV aggregate is always in big demand. The PSV stone used in the runway at Shannon Airport came out of Bweeng, who also supplied high PSV stone for the prestigious runway resurfacing project at Cork Airport, having completed an extensive range of major infrastructure and highway maintenance projects in the UK and Ireland including roads, airfields and construction site works.
The Cork Airport Runway 16-34 resurfacing project involved some 2,350 truckloads of asphalt as well as 200 truckloads of CBGM concrete. Breedon Asphalt placed 47,000 tonnes of Marshall Asphalt in 47 shifts, working six days per week. The on-site team comprised 60 personnel and 50 items of plant and vehicles, and necessitated complex logistical co-ordination of labour, plant and material resources.
As a leading heavyside construction materials supplier in Ireland and the UK, Breedon Group benefits from increasing Government infrastructure spending plans and robust residential and building markets. Between the quarries, concrete plants and asphalt plant, Breedon has established a firm foothold in the Cork market.
“Things will go a little quieter over the winter but there are a lot of structures going up and we’ll be producing T1 and S.R.21 for those,” Roy concludes. “Patrician Academy in Mallow, for example, are moving onto Phase II of their development and we’ll be supplying aggregates and concrete. There’s always big demand for our materials and we are kept going all year around.”
Breedon Ireland,
Carrigcleena,
Bweeng,
County Cork.
Tel: 021 733 3051
Mobile: 086 0812562
Web: breedongroup.com
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, December 2023, Vol 9 No 12
