FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Chapter 5 Finding a New Home

Recycling was back on the agenda in a big way, and it was something I knew and cared a good deal about.

Finding a site within striking distance of London was never going to be an easy task. The site had to be large enough for all the things we wanted to do, and we had to be sure we’d be able to get the right planning permissions. In September 1999, I’d identified a place that might do, and I arranged to walk round it with Ron Woodland, my legal advisor. The site at Rochester Way near Dartford consisted of fourteen acres, of which eleven were habitable and three were SSSI designated (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and would therefore need to be protected. To my mind, the site was perfect: I could see where everything would go, and I could see how it was going to work. That’s what I saw when I walked round it. What Ron saw was quite different, and I quote: ‘I saw a mess. I saw mud. I saw unauthorised tenants. I saw a nightmare.’ And he wasn’t entirely wrong. There must have been twenty or more businesses working out of there. There was a pile of portable loos stacked up like a tower, and perched in among them was an old US-style metal diner (which is now our company restaurant). There was a firing range where they had tested out Bren

The Diner, which is now the staff restaurant, was one of the unwanted items left behind when Beck & Pollitzer moved off the site in 2004. We don’t like to see good things go to waste, especially not a treasure like this, so we recycled it.

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