Welcome to the future....

The out dated portacabin canteen gone and a new multipurpose brick built super canteen in its place, this is not some dream of the yard operatives but very much reality.

The portacabin canteen that we knew originally started life at Stowell Concrete as Vince Stowell's office during the mid 1980's and lived by the block making beds at Yatton. The "egg laying" block machines would slowly thunder past the window every so often, leaving their trail of concrete blocks on their production journey down the long concrete "runways."  Vince had to plan his phone calls carefully and in conjunction with the movements of the machines as they stopped, vibrated, laid and then trundled on and beyond his office.   

The cabin in 1995 would then be moved and situated in between the newly built office and toilet block in Yatton and ever since then the three structures have remained.

However, the passing of time had not been kind to the canteen, a slight revamp by adding a dry room for the yard staff to hang their wet weather gear and a general spruce up pumped an extra few years of life into the old structure and with the toilet block not as inviting as it once was especially during the winter months. A decision was made to build a new staff restroom/canteen and dry room but also combining the old, but to be refurbished, toilet block into the new build.

The build was put into the safe and steady hands of Trevor, who leads all the building projects, big and small, within the various works of Stowell Concrete. Who coincidentally built the office and original toilet block back in 1995.

Terry, plant 6 manager, who also happens to be Trevor's son, helped his father for many years before moving to manage and run plant 6, also helped with overseeing the new build and joining in whenever he could.

Along with Dan, who was a for many years a production and yard operative here at Yatton, recently joined Trevor on the maintenance team, Mark D our onsite Electrician, Mike our yard 6 shovel driver AKA "Mastic Mike", Ian B who assisted Trevor on the brick and block work and more on this project and also previous builds and last but not least Mark K, a long standing employee, yard operative, builder and general "jack of all trades" plus a variety of sub-contractors who gave their services.

So long gone are the days of walking into the tired, old, creaky and dark staff canteen and welcome to the clean, brilliant white, slick clean lines, smooth and bright glossy walls of this multifunctional canteen. Which looks like something out of Arthur C Clarkes '2001 - A Space Odyssey' (cue music - "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss and brilliant white space stations spinning in sequence to the music)

Beth Stowell cut the ribbon with the assistance of Trevor and Dan and in doing so officially opened the building.

The new building contains male and female toilets along with a disabled access toilet, dry room, shower room, kitchen and a large area with tables and chairs.

Thank you to one and all in making this happen, a real "phoenix from the flames" build.