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Celebrating 13 years: How this teenager has grown from training supplier to leading contractor

Celebrating 13 years: How this teenager has grown from training supplier to leading contractor

In 2022, City TM celebrated the milestone of 13 years in business. Officially a teenager, it’s been a major evolution from infancy to where the company stands today – as a leading traffic management contractor across the entirety of the south of England.

Born in 2009, City TM was very much a traffic management training provider. The company in that form proved successful over the best part of a decade, but the most significant step in the company’s existence came in 2017 when the first steps into traffic management contracting were taken.

MD Mat Field explained to us how things started, described the journey so far, as well as laid out some plans and ambitions for the future.

“I was working for a national TM company, and as I did, I felt was spending too much time away from home. At that time, I had a small family, so I felt I needed to change that.” said Mat. “In 2009, I decided to start on my own as a one-man band and since then, have gradually and organically grown the business into what is now its 14th year.”

Speaking of the early years, Mat told us:

“During the early years, the biggest challenge was funding. Trying to grow a business without lots of capital was difficult and to be candid, we were often relying on the next payment to see us through the next job. I think anyone who has started a business without large sums of funding or investment will have an inkling as to what that feels like. It’s fair to say it can be stressful – to put it mildly. With that said, operationally we have some really great staff that have been with us a long time and truly believe in the business and our capabilities. As a unit we all work very well together and have always helped each other through difficult times.”

City TM started with just Mat involved and remained that way for the company’s first 4 years. At this point, some of the aforementioned great operational staff began employment in order to aid the growth of the business. City TM now has over 100 members of staff on its workforce, with plans to grow significantly over the coming months to around 125 by the end of 2022, and 200 by the end of 2023.

Mat continued:

“In the beginning it really was difficult, but by employing a few trusted members of staff it gave us the belief it was possible to achieve the things I’d initially had as ambitions.

“Taking the step into TM contracting via our operational division and growing that organically has been one of the biggest milestones so far when it comes to taking City TM from one level to another. Following a few successful years growing the contracting arm, the acquisition of our Operational HUB in St Albans has escalated that growth significantly. This has, by far and away given us the platform to grow to the size we are today – and we fully expect our new HUB in Maidstone, Kent to mirror that growth and give us a further platform to springboard off again in 2023.”

We asked Mat a few more questions, starting with; What’s the biggest challenge now compared to 12/13 years ago?

Mat explained:

“The sheer number of employees. When you employ 20 or 30 staff you believe you’re a ‘big’ business. Then, you breakthrough that barrier and it’s only when you have to employ dedicated HR staff, commercial staff, health & safety staff and planning staff of nearly 20 people in that team alone – then you realise that you certainly weren’t as ‘big’ as you thought you were. And I don’t believe that was ego on our part, but it’s all we knew at the time. Those staff numbers are before we even get started on the operational teams too.”

On the subject of company goals, Mat told us:

“To expand our SRN Division for the 12A, B and now C works across the National Highways areas is our biggest short-term objective, with our ultimate long-term goal to become the industry’s trusted partner of choice for traffic management works in London and the home counties. Our new HUB in Maidstone will give us the operational support to react quicker to our contracts and regional depots further South and grow those contracts further.”

“The future looks bright for us and our team are all excited to tackle our ‘teenage years’ with the same tenacity shown on the journey so far.”

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