Company Profile

Forever Fuels is part of the Summerleaze group of companies.

Summerleaze was founded in 1930 by Robin Prior, to extract and supply sand and gravel in the Thames Valley. It was incorporated in 1946. It remains a private company, wholly-owned by two of Robin's children - Peter and Helen - and their descendants.

In the 1970s, Summerleaze diversified into ready-mix concrete and waste disposal. In the 1980s, Summerleaze (led by then by Peter) moved into renewable energy, commissioning one of the first independent renewable-electricity generating stations in the country, at Wapseys Wood landfill near Gerrards Cross, Bucks. in 1987. The landfill-gas power business (RE-Gen) grew over the past two decades to be one of the larger independent renewable generating businesses in the UK, producing over 300 GWh p.a. The landfill-gas business was sold in 2007 to Infinis Ltd, part of the Terra Firma group.

Gravel remains the bedrock of the business, but Summerleaze has diversified further in recent years, into less mature renewable sectors, such as anaerobic digestion (Andigestion Ltd, whose plants at Holsworthy in Devon and at Cambridge produce around 70% of the electricity from non-sewage AD in the UK), renewable hydrogen (Green Hydrogen, the only producer of renewable hydrogen for the merchant market in the UK) and biomass heating (Forever Fuels). Summerleaze intends to make the long journey from immaturity to maturity in these sectors, as it did in the landfill-gas sector.

The origins of Forever Fuels lie in the establishment of the Energy Crops Company (ECC) by Graham Hilton and John Young in Cobham, Surrey in 2004. Part of Graham and John's vision for ECC was to take a leading role in the infant wood-pellet heating market. They established the initial infrastructure and relationships for such a business, and did much to promote the industry to the public and particularly to government.

But it was never going to be a quick or easy task to change the myopic obsession with renewable electricity as the only part of the renewable-energy triumvirate (of electricity, transport and heat) that mattered in the eyes of politicians, civil servants and most of the rest of the intelligentsia. In the absence of any sensible and substantial policy measures to reward green heat for its carbon- and security-contribution in a manner equivalent to the support for renewable electricity, and indeed in the face of active measures to hold down the cost of domestic heating (whilst simultaneously driving up the costs of transport and electricity), the green-heating sector was bound to develop slowly.

By 2007, Graham and John needed more financial support to continue to develop the sector, and turned to Summerleaze for that help. In October 2007, Summerleaze and ECC formed Forever Fuels as a joint venture to take forward ECC's work in this area. Graham and John continued to manage Forever Fuels' activities.

However, it became clear in summer 2008 that further investment was required to support the business's activities in the infant market and to develop its infrastructure to be able to supply some of the most promising regions more efficiently. Graham and John sold their share of FF to Summerleaze to enable Summerleaze to make this investment.

Summerleaze took control of the management of the company, and moved FF's head office to Summerleaze's base in Maidenhead. Peter's son Bruno (formerly MD of RE-Gen) took over as MD of FF, and Simon Worth also moved over from Summerleaze to be Commercial Manager of FF. FF's existing sales team of Ian Armstrong and Clive Moulton remained with the company, and Graham Hilton was retained as a Non-Executive Director.

From its new base in Maidenhead, FF will be able to call on the broader resources of the Summerleaze group, including the Finance and Accounts team under the direction of group Finance Director, Jeremy Malkinson, the group Fleet Manager, Steve Cook, and the group Compliance Manager, Emma Edwards, who will be implementing and maintaining comprehensive quality, environmental and other management systems.

Graham and John continue to develop the other activities of the Energy Crops Company in the biofuels sector.