Classic recycling

Busy business Britaniacrest is engaged in recycling in more ways than one… We visit its Surrey yard to admire the company’s classic restorations

- Richard Stanier

Britaniacrest Recycling will be a common sight to those in and around Surrey and West Sussex, where the company’s blue and white fleet is engaged in waste haulage, tipper and skip hire operations, but it is the firm’s fleet of classic lorries that really draws the eye.

Chris Foss, a Britaniacrest director alongside brothers Richard and Ray Jnr, takes time out to talk about the business and to give us the background on the company’s burgeoning vintage truck fleet.

Thames Traders The Foss family can trace their origins in transport back to the late 1950s, when Chris’s grandfather operated Thames Traders around London and was involved in subcontracting for Richard Costain on the construction of the M4.

In the 1970s the family relocated to the Gatwick area and, in 1993, Chris’s father, Ray Snr, became an owner-driver and then founded the Britaniacrest business in Hookwood, Surrey. Since 2015 the business has also been involved in house building and property development and today three generations of the family are involved in transport.

In addition to the Hookwood site, Britaniacrest also operates a quarry in Storrington, West Sussex which is used for sand excavation and back-filled with inert waste for restoration, and a waste transfer station at Horsham, also in West Sussex.

An impressive proposal for a waste recycling, recovery and renewable energy scheme on the site of the former Wealdon Brickworks site at Horsham is under consideration, but for now Britaniacrest employs 126 people and operates around 60 vehicles. Most of the lorries are Volvos, recent additions being a selection of FE, FMX and FH models.