Wooburn Green based manufacturing company wins royal recognition for innovation

Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher (right) presents the Queen’s Award to Managing Director of N A Brown, Nick Brown. (Image supplied by Buckinghamshire County Council)

A Wooburn Green based manufacturing company has been awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

N.A.Brown Ltd is a small business which employs just 14 people. However the business has received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the innovation category for their work in using recycled plastic in the development of parts used in road sweeping machines.

The company manufactures brushes for road sweeping machines that are used up and down the country in towns and cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham.

It was the first company to market brush heads made from plastic discs replacing traditional plywood heads. The company has also developed a novel, new, low cost moulding process using degraded recycled plastic to manufacture the brush heads.

Previously the brush head discs had been made using injection moulding techniques which required the use of high grade plastic. However the unique manufacturing method developed by N A Brown Ltd uses an extruder and pressure mould to create the discs. This allows the company to use lower grade recycled plastic leading to significantly reduced energy consumption and trebled production rates as well as created a more environmentally friendly approach to reusing and recycling plastic.

In 2019 just four Buckinghamshire businesses have received a Queen’s Award, with N A Brown Ltd being one of them.

The Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, presented the award to Managing Director, Nick Brown, on behalf of HM The Queen. He said: ‘N.A.Brown Ltd is an example of the kind of company this country needs more of – imaginative, innovative, and productive.

The Queen’s Awards differ from personal honours such as OBEs and MBEs in that they are given to an industrial or business unit as a whole and recognize management and employees working as a team benefiting not only the enterprise but also their local community and country by their achievement.

It gives me enormous pleasure to present the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category for 2019 to Nick Brown on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen.’

Receiving the award, Nick Brown said: ‘I am delighted and thrilled to have received The Queen’s Award for Enterprise from Sir Henry. When I was a young man I witnessed the presentation of a Queen’s Award and said to myself at the time that I would love to receive one of those in the future. It is just like having a dream come true!‘

*Source of article : Press release from Buckinghamshire County Council.