Maidstone-based DSL provides service and maintenance for hundreds of school buildings, including the world's oldest school.
Founded in 1984 by Ron Bryant and Dave Lucas, Delron Services started life servicing and refurbishing steam boilers - then a common feature in schools and hospitals. Today, the work has changed dramatically with the firm specialising in large mechanical services installations and service and maintenance contracts for a wide range of clients.

It now has an annual turnover close to £6 million and directly employs 77 staff within two divisions. Bryant runs the contracting arm while Lucas is head of DSL Fabrication specialising in offsite fabrication.

DSL currently manages all the 600 school buildings in East Kent on behalf of Kent County Council. It also looks after the oldest school in the world: Kings School, Canterbury, so has unprecedented experience of working with site managers struggling to keep ageing building stock fit for purpose.

HVCA president-elect Martin Burton is a recent addition to DSL's team as project manager and is concentrating on developing the large projects side of the business. One of his first successes was securing the contract to supply all the mechanical services to the 500-pupil Manor Community School currently under construction in Swanscombe, Kent in conjunction with Kier Southern.


The contrasting challenges of designing and installing services in a new build and tackling the everyday issues of existing facilities in partnership with site managers has given DSL's management team a clear insight into all aspects of school buildings.

The Manor Community School project will include a 10m solar array to provide a large proportion of the new facility's hot water, as part of the design carried out by consulting engineers at Jacobs; but such luxuries are not widely available to those running existing school buildings. 'In most cases, we can only achieve a limited amount in terms of cutting emissions and lowering running costs,' says Burton. 'We do try and make improvements, but the priority has to be ensuring the school operates as smoothly as possible. Good maintenance will, of course, always improve energy efficiency and that is often the best tactic for school managers.

'When a 30-year-old boiler breaks down, while it would be nice to be able to upgrade the whole heating system and install something more efficient, the reality is the school needs heating and we just have to do what we can as fast as we can.'
Burton is a great believer in new technologies, however, and thinks we are not far away from some real breakthrough solutions for school buildings. 'The new generation of air source heat pumps can generate temperatures above 65°C, which means they can be added to existing heating systems - that's critical,' he says. 'We are also not too far away from a generation of fuel cells that can be applied to buildings to improve performance vastly and reduce carbon footprints. The key is to improve the running of the system with little disruption.'

Burton also believes the company's pre-fabrication expertise could play a larger role in helping deliver fast-track refurbishment work. In a number of projects, pre-fabricated plant rooms can be connected to the existing services to keep the school up and running during major refurbs and as long-term replacements for conventional services.


It was a decision taken by Bryant and his senior team in 2005 to work directly for end clients, rather than through the traditional construction supply chain, that led to work for KCC along with the NHS, MoD and other projects for local authorities. DSL also does work for Southern Water including managing its biogas facilities, which allows the company to draw on its heavy engineering heritage, but also move into the environmental management area.

'Like many others, we had run into difficulties with main contractors going out of business or being reluctant to pay their bills,' says Bryant. 'Thanks to our engineering background, we are happy to have a go at things that other firms in our sector would probably walk away from,' he adds. 'We have been able to adapt our business and now have a strong training ethos that includes taking on at least one apprentice every year.'

Working directly for end clients, many of whom are blue chip companies and LAs, has led to a necessary modernisation of how the business tenders and manages its contracts with IT playing an increasingly important role.

'The amount of paperwork required in tendering for major projects presents a challenge to contractors,' says Bryant. 'Councils, in particular, have very exacting reporting standards and invoicing has to be carried out every 14 days. We have developed our own digital pen system which allows us to receive handwritten forms from engineers in the field directly into e-mails to speed up our estimating and invoicing process.'

The KPIs expected by council clients has driven the standards setting process right across the DSL business and created a discipline the firm can apply to all of its work. 'The great thing about service and maintenance contracts is that they guarantee stable cash flow - as long as you can get your invoicing right,' says contracts director Ian McGregor. 'Payment is usually within 21 days.'

There is a downside to having large local authority contracts, however, says McGregor who is the new vice-chairman of the HVCA's Service and Facilities Group. 'There are quite a few businesses which have effectively become single contract firms built completely around a large maintenance project,' he says. 'A number are now finding it hard to meet the requirements of LAs and if they lose the work their whole business is in jeopardy.

'For example, Kent County Council says it would prefer to only employ contractors which recruit and train apprentices. We are in a good position there as we currently have three apprentices on our books, but generally in our industry recruitment is down.'

Industry standard

LAs also insist on firms working to industry best practice standards. The HVCA's guide SFG20 is the main industry standard and, while most LAs have their own versions, they tend to use SFG20. 'Our strong links with the association serve us well,' says McGregor. 'It shows we are up-to-date on legal and technical developments.

'Most of the people running school buildings do not come from hvac backgrounds so they rely on us to point them in the right direction,' he adds. 'However, we also have to be sensitive to their priorities which are, clearly, ensuring the school keeps running and is safe.'

A recurring safety issues in schools is the presence of asbestos. DSL reports some kind of encounter with asbestos almost every day across the large estate of buildings it looks after. 'We try, as much as possible, to carry out essential works during the school holidays,' says Bryant. 'However, if we encounter asbestos - which we frequently do - that will add hold ups and requires very careful management. Having said that, we have managed to re-pipe comschools during the holidays and the more experience you have of that work, the easier it gets.'

Another regular cause of delays is the confusion around the issue of CRB checking. However, the main cloud on the horizon could be the priorities of any incoming new government after the election. 'The money for improving schools has been allocated and any trimming by a new administration would be very damaging,' says Burton.

'There was a moratorium on spending that last time the Tories came into power, and it would be disastrous if that happened again.'

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