Aldersons of Worsall is a long established family contracting business working in DRAINAGE, CONSTRUCTION, CIVIL ENGINEERING, TRENCHING and TRANSPORT.

We have been in business for more than 60 years following a decision made by the late Oswald Alderson to set up as an agricultural contractor during World War II when the demands for all out food production could not be achieved by farmers with little machinery of their own. Ploughing and threshing were the mainstays with a wider range of services being added all the time. Farming methods changed rapidly and the company changed with them; being amongst the first with combine harvesters and pick up balers as threshing declined. Although we stayed at the forefront of agricultural contracting it was becoming apparent, as modern farming methods evolved, that more and more specialised machinery was needed for shorter and shorter seasonal work. Something had to be done.

Also during the war the government had set up the "War Agricultural Committee" (known to all thereafter as the War Ag) to ensure maximum domestic food production when imports were all but cut off. To do this they embarked on a policy of bringing all possible land into arable production which quickly showed up the need for improved drainage. The War Ag rose to the challenge and set up a nationwide land drainage service with what little machinery was then available. Food shortages did not end when the war did with rationing continuing into the 1950s so various parts of the War Ag including draining were kept going. It was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that their depots around the country gradually closed down. An opening was created for private contractors and it was exactly what we were looking for at the time.

The government through its Ministry of Agriculture department still promoted and effectively controlled LAND DRAINAGE by undertaking the design of schemes, supervising and, most importantly, paying direct grant aid to the landowner. With this support we were the first private drainage contractors in the area with a new modern TRENCHER and the business expanded with the emphasis clearly on LAND DRAINAGE.

Business boomed for 25 years - and so did food production - until food mountains started to appear. The government was quick to respond by phasing out grant aid but worse was to follow when, not only did they stop promoting land drainage, but went as far as discouraging it to increase wetland areas, and re-introduce PONDS, LAKES and open WATERCOURSES. So the emphasis of our business changed to take these ideas on board.

Our range of machinery has widened to enable us to tackle a wider range of work and that led to us being able to undertake larger and larger contracts on the construction of major cross country PIPELINE, OVERHEAD POWER LINE and UNDERGROUND CABLE installations. More recently we have developed our own equipment to work on high profile SPORTS TURF DRAINAGE schemes. More and more machinery to move around led us into providing our own LOW LOADER TRANSPORT and in the time-honoured fashion of maximum utilisation we now transport plant and machinery for customers throughout the country.

The family tradition continues into a second and third generation with Donald Alderson as Managing Director and his son Tom as Operations Director who in turn has managers in charge of UTILITIES, SPORTS TURF, FIELD DRAINAGE and TRANSPORT all backed up by a loyal, locally recruited and longstanding workforce. New developments are happening all the time and we continue to pride ourselves on, not only being the first to take advantage of them, but also being responsible for some of them and this together with our total commitment will keep us as the leading company in this field.