Sign firm heading for £20m annual sales

Jun 8 2009 by Chris Knox, The Journal

AN electronic sign making company has just landed a multi-million pound contract which it believes will enable it to grow its turnover from £15m to £20m in five years as well as help to maintain its 65-strong workforce.

Variable Message Signs Ltd (VMSL), of Hebburn, South Tyneside, has been awarded a five-year contract to provide traffic calming signs in the West Midlands area with a potential value of around £5m.

The firm, which has been trading for over 25 years, has already received an order worth nearly £500,000 from Wolverhampton City Council, which is the lead authority on the project and is purchasing an extensive range of signs on behalf of other local authorities, including those in Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell and Solihul, with Coventry and Birmingham joining at a later stage.

The contract, which is expected to see to a second order of a similar value by the end of the year, involves the manufacture, supply and installation of large scale driver information signs for use on congested motorways, which will all be controlled and monitored by the newly established Highways Agency West Midlands Regional Control Centre at Quinton.