Wayne Johnston is a popular guy. Surveyor waited patiently to ask him the first question for this interview while several people said hello and shook his hand as he sat on his trade stand at the Road Expo exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Like most talented businessmen, Wayne Johnston took a risk when he started the WJ Group, growing it from scratch to the formidable business proposition it is today.
Nearly 30 years later and that risk has paid off. The WJ Group is the largest road marking company in the UK and Mr Johnston is ambitious for it to become the safest company of its kind in Europe by implementing a number of measures over the next few years.
The WJ Group not only offers permanent and temporary road markings, but also road studs, high friction safety surfacing, asphalt repair, Hydroblast line removal, surface re-texturing and average speed cameras .It employs over 450 staff to get the job done.
2015 saw more industry awards fill the WJ Group trophy cabinet and new partnerships with companies such as 3M as well as internal work on projects such as apprenticeship schemes and safety improvements. There was also the small matter of the purchase of the Euromark GB business.
Speaking his mind: Wayne Johnston
Mr Johnston started the company in 1987 with one truck and big ambitions. He took business studies at college and always knew he wanted his own company but never imagined it would be a road markings one.
It is no surprise, though, because highway maintenance is in his blood. His father Doug Johnston was in the business. He had set up a successful thermoplastic manufacturing company with two partners and gave a summer job to his son. Mr Johnston junior found the factory work tedious but needed the money. But it was this job that set him on the path to working for himself.
‘The major growth in the business started when we went from basic work on car parks and into temporary road markings. It was the early 1990s and contraflows had become a popular method of trying to deal with congestion and traffic flows.
‘It was the catalyst for the growth of this company and something that we became specialists in,’ he tells Surveyor.
But during the mid-1990s there was a problem. A big problem. A moratorium was put on all roadworks overnight because of a severe lack of funding.
‘The whole industry was all but shut down overnight. It was a nightmare, but we survived. It made me realise we needed to branch out in order to continue to survive and that’s when we started expanding our permanent markings activity. It meant we could really grow the business organically.’
It was at this point that the WJ Group also identified other growth potential and made its first strategic acquisition.
‘These were opportunities that we had to take,’ Mr Johnston explains. ‘For too long we had become too dependent on the temporary market. There were busy periods but also, because of the nature of the business, very long periods were we didn’t have any work at all.
'This is why I bought Moxon Road Markings in 2004 and Linkline Maintenance and Ambridge Thermoplastics in 2007. These acquisitions were such a game changer doubling the business overnight while also providing expertise to build bespoke road marking vehicles in the Elland depot and the facility to develop and manufacture high performance thermoplastic road marking materials in Milton Keynes.
‘Having the ability to manufacture your own materials is important. It gives you security of supply and can lead to quicker development of your own innovations. It also enables you to better assess what is going on in the network and helps you to respond more effectively.’
In 2010 WJ added a new depot based in Somerset and now carry out the majority of road marking contracts within the South West region. But above all, safety is Wayne Johnston’s biggest passion.
‘We do one of the most dangerous jobs. We are dealing with hot material in the middle of the motorway, often at night, so safety is crucial. It is an area I am determined to improve on every year,’ he says.
WJ is currently investing a significant amount of money into automating the process of installing road studs.
‘My aim is to automate the entire business,’ he states. ‘One of my main aspirations is to leave this sector doing things differently to when I started. The fact is, we are still laying road markings the same way as my father did back in the 1950s and that has to change.
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‘We are now fortunate enough to be in a good position financially and that means I can invest upwards of £500,000 on research. But it takes time. It is amazing how many things you have to consider when taking a potential concept to delivery. But the benefits are huge,’ he says.
The WJ Group is also engaging with companies and organisations outside of the industry to help with its research and development, including a knowledge transfer partnership with the Open University.
It is also working jointly with Pera Technology which specialises in bringing proven technologies from other industries into new sectors.
In 2005, the WJ Group was the first company to introduce the Hydroblast system to the UK market. This was a new method of removing road markings from existing carriageways.
Since then, the system has been used as a basis for other applications such as rubber removal on airport runways, highways retexturing and bitumen removal on surfaced dressed roads.
‘The biggest problem today is that the UK does not have an official; road trial site to test new highway products and ideas,' Mr Johnston says.
‘The European standards, based on wheel-overs, has to be done under certain conditions and traffic flow. That is impossible without a live test site.’
The WJ Group now does all of its major road testing in Belgium. ‘It’s not ideal, but regrettably, we have no other option,’ says Mr Johnston.
‘We have ideas for innovation and development – a lot of which is driven by our employees.
‘The main aim is to eliminate risk to our staff while they are working on the network and eventually, we want to take all of our workers off the road.
‘That is why we are removing the risk of having them there in the first place. This can only be done by more investment in automation,’ he adds.
All this investment can only be worthwhile if the work continues to come in. So far, the WJ Group has been fortunate enough not to feel too many effects from cuts in the industry.
In fact, Mr Johnston views recent talk of more collaboration and joint working as a great opportunity.
‘There is more collaboration and the Government has already made it clear it intends to pursue this.
‘In the case of road markings, it has already been proven that it is a very important contributing factor towards making our roads safer.'
He adds that the highways sector has to be flexible ‘and look to change what we do and do it better’. Collaboration will help, he admits.
‘It is all about providing safe, reliable journeys and ensuring that our infrastructure, the lifeblood of our economy, is maintained properly.’
All of this, of course, relies on consistent and sustainable funding. ‘I’ve seen graphs that pitch highways departments against heath, education and adult social care and how those other sectors grow larger while highways get smaller.
‘Hopefully there has been a long-term commitment to investing in local infrastructure, so it is up to industry to make the most of that,’ he says.
‘What we are talking about is getting better at measuring what we do – measuring the success and understanding how we present the case for more funding,’ Mr Johnston adds.
‘We’ve got to get better at engaging with the communities that we serve and delivering what they want. We’ve got to be more dynamic at communicating with these people so that they understand what we do and start talking about the road network in a more positive manner. But they will only do that if we get things right.
‘We need to find more effective ways of stopping our local road network from declining even further for our future generations. If we really do want to be one of the top countries in the world in terms of our GDP, then we must have a road network and infrastructure that is fit for purpose.
‘It’s not always about spending more money, it’s about spending money more wisely. The sticking plaster approach won’t work any more,’ he warns.
As well as working with local authorities and the private sector, a big part of the WJ business is working with Highways England in a number of areas.
Despite Highways England having guaranteed spending for five years, the business for the road marking sector, which it had been asked to ‘gear up for’ a year ago, has yet to materialise.
Mr Johnson believes this is just a temporary blip. ‘I think it’s about Highways England taking stock and readjusting,’ he says.
‘It would be helpful to have clarification of any new plan.’ he says. 'However, if the plan is still to resurface 80% of the network in just five years that could have been thought about differently. In my opinion, five years is too short.
‘For example, it takes 18 months to build a truck and another three years to put someone through an apprenticeship scheme. I would prefer to see that money used over a longer period of time.
‘In five years’ time, when all the work is already done, what will we do then? Make people redundant?’
Looking ahead, Mr Johnston is still positive: ‘There are so many opportunities. I would like to see us offering new products and services to clients in addition to what we already do and also carrying on with our vital research. But overall, I want the WJ Group to be the safest company in Europe and I am absolutely committed to that.’
