Business owners left ‘numb’ after fire destroys warehouse
A FAMILY-RUN business whose workshop was destroyed by a fire at Bridgend Industrial Estate has estimated it could take months and cost “the best part of £100,000” to get back up and running again.
Tom Berrow, who co-owns Benchmark Scenic Construction - a specialist construction company for the film and television industry - with his brother, Dan, said the incident had been a “gut punch” and “complete blow”.
Describing the last few days since the fire broke out on Friday, January 19, as a “whirlwind”, he said he had still not been able to access the property to assess the extent of the damage.
Benchmark Scenic Construction is housed in a unit which backs onto the warehouse, owned by Owens Group, which is where the fire started.
The warehouse, which Owens Group said was used to store toilet and kitchen rolls for one of its customers, was completely engulfed and destroyed by the fire, while adjacent businesses were also damaged as the fire spread through the wall.
Tom said that despite the setback, Benchmark Scenic Construction was working hard to get back up and running.
Fire crews were called at 8.30pm on Friday by staff who were in the Owens Group warehouse and were on the scene within minutes. It took firefighters until 8am on Saturday morning to bring the fire under control.
The blaze and smoke were visible for miles, with one onlooker previously estimating the flames to be about 100ft high.
Tom, 39, found out about the outbreak of the blaze while he was playing squash on Friday night and “hightailed” it to the scene to find a “raging inferno”.
He and his brother, 35, launched Benchmark Scenic Construction around 15 years ago and “built it from scratch with a lot of blood, sweat and tears”.
Starting from a small workshop in Caerphilly, it progressed and has been housed in a warehouse on Bridgend Industrial Estate for the last five years and has counted Netflix, the BBC and Universal among its clients.
“It’s 10, 15 years of hard work just gone within eight minutes,” Tom said. “I don’t think we fully appreciate quite what has gone on, because you are quite numb to it for a while.”
Thankfully, they had not been working on large-scale projects when the workshop was destroyed, owing to strikes in the film industry, he added. But they did have ongoing smaller projects and “have had to call up a couple of clients and give them the bad news”.
Tom said the next steps were to check what was covered by their insurance and find a new property, which they will start searching for this week.
Asked how much it would cost he said: “I dread to calculate it all yet...I imagine it’s the best part of £100,000 to set back up again.”
He also said the set up of the workshop was “very specific” and that in itself would be a “really big undertaking”.
He thanked the emergency services for putting out the fire, and also fellow businesses for their support.
“It is a very tight-knit industry. I have been really blown away by the support and kindness offered by businesses - competitors, as it were - who have offered a helping hand. We’ve been offered space in a number of places, and tools and help to do things.”
Transport, warehousing and distribution company Owens Group, which owns the warehouse where the fire started, said it was “saddened and shocked by the events of Friday night”.
“We expect that due to the intensity of the fire the remains of the building will be demolished,” said group managing director Huw Owen.
“We are utilising some of our other warehouses across South Wales until we have had time to discuss what will happen next.”
Asked how the damage had affected its operations, he added: “The incident has put massive pressure on our operations, however, all of our teams have pulled together and by Saturday morning a backup plan was agreed and put in place.
“This is working well and has resulted in minimal disruption to our customer and their customers. We would like to thank all of Teamowens for the positive response to what has been a very upsetting and challenging weekend.”
No-one was injured in the fire but South Wales Police said they had arrested a 25-year-old man on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life. He has since been bailed pending further investigation.
In a statement, Owens Group clarified that the person arrested was not one of its employees.