MOVERS & SHAKERS ALLAN FROGGATT

As movers and shakers within the fencing industry go, few have moved and shaken things up as much as Allan Froggatt of ProFencer! His machinery, based on years of working at ‘the coalface,’ has helped to transform the nature of fencing for the better.

Allan, who operates out of Bakewell in Derbyshire, has not moved far from his roots. He explained:

“I was born at a small hill farm situated on the banks of the Derwent reservoir in the Derbyshire Peak District. On leaving school, I naturally went into farming and did so for the next 21 years before I realized that there was no money in farming. I eventually made the huge decision to leave farming and start my own fencing business!”

Starting out with just a spade, crowbar, a drive-all, and some hand tools, demand for Allan’s services gradually grew. He went on:

“It was all I could afford at the time. Working on a farm, there is always plenty of new fencing and repairs to be done all year round, so I was well-trained in this type of work. I worked on my own for the first 4 years and then employed a farmer’s son for the next year, and then another until I had five guys working with me. Most of our work was for clients like the National Trust, United Utilities, Yorkshire Water, and Severn Trent, as well as local landowners, environmental agencies, and farmers.

“We built a reputation for being prepared to undertake jobs that other contractors didn’t want because of their remote locations. Often in these situations, the materials would be airlifted onto the fence line. That was the easy part because a lot of the contracts ranged from half a mile up to a 4-mile hike every morning and back at night because we weren’t allowed to use tracked or wheeled vehicles. We were all young and fit in those days.”

After spending approximately 16 years fencing in those remote and difficult locations, Allan started winning contracts in more accessible spots where a tractor and post knocker could be used along the fence line instead of all the hand work. He added:

“It was almost like being on holiday after all of the moorland work!”

Whilst recovering from having three hip and two knee replacements, Allan began thinking that there had to be an easier way of unrolling netting than rolling it along the ground and straining by hand.

“I started searching for a machine that would do this but couldn’t find anything that would allow me to fence how I wanted to fence. After running hundreds of ideas through my head, I came up with a prototype machine which was extensively tried, tested, and altered several times before I arrived at what I wanted. The ProFencer was born and now, with the help of my excellent engineer Chris, we have had 14 years of making ProFencers and have now sold machines into 12 different countries around the world.”

In January 2014, ProFencer won the Farm Innovation Machinery Award at the Lamma Show. It was the first of its kind to come onto the market with others attempting to copy it. Imitation is the best form of flattery, as the saying goes!

Allan continued:

“In my opinion, ProFencer is still the strongest and most durable machine you can buy. A lot of the components have now been copied by other manufacturers who haven’t had to spend all the time and money to develop them, but that is life! Currently, we have several twin roll machines in Germany that will handle two rolls of netting weighing 800kg each. That is 1600kg on one machine, so it’s got to be strong to handle that amount of weight. The hardest working machine we are aware of is in Australia, where our customer told us earlier this year that it had delivered over 600,000 meters of deer netting and is still going strong.

“We are still thinking of and trying out new ideas which we will hopefully add to the ProFencer family in due course. I get a great deal of satisfaction from what we’ve achieved over the last few years with ProFencer, but we have no intention of standing still!”

If the countless testimonials are anything to go by, Allan really has made his mark on our sector!

For more information, visit ProFencer’s website.