After several years of to-ing and fro-ing during which it temporarily disappeared, SGB – probably the most famous and widely-recognised name in scaffolding – has finally been consigned to history.
Early last month, Brandsafway, the US-based corporation that now owns the business, announced that SGB is no more. The company currently known as Lyndon SGB is now called Brand Access Solutions (BAS).
Brandsafway says that the business has been renamed “to better align with BrandSafway’s global family of businesses and streamline its offerings under a unified message and vision,” which makes sense if you want all of your products and services to share a common identity.
It adds: “The new brand name also is intended to support the company’s commitment to continual learning, whether that is supporting customers to achieve their project goals or enhancing health and safety on site,” which make less sense; changing the name won’t ensure lifelong learning nor will it contribute to health and safety standards on customer’s sites.
The name-change will affect all Lyndon SGB branches in the UK.
Brand Access Solutions is the largest and (under its previous name) probably the most widely recognised manufacturer, supplier and contractor of scaffolding products and services in the UK.
But as SGB, the company’s fame spread worldwide over many decades.
Founded by David Palmer-Jones in 1919 as Scaffolding Great Britain, SGB is often credited as having invented scaffolding as we know it today. Its landmark invention was the Universal Coupler – a product which has remained virtually unchanged for almost a century.
Throughout the 20th century, SGB established a pattern for scaffold components and scaffolding design that it exported around the world.
It is still active in many countries around the globe with particularly strong ties in Commonwealth countries, the Middle East and other far-flung regions with close connections with the former British Empire.
One market SGB never successfully penetrated was mainland Europe, where the scaffolding industry is markedly different. Here, scaffolding suppliers neither erect nor hire equipment and do not employ their own erectors, which is the norm within the UK.
European manufacturers also veered away from the traditional tube-and-fittings pioneered by SGB, developing their own scaffold systems which (despite fierce resistance from vested interests in the UK) have since become widely accepted over here.
SGB was one of those most active in resisting the tide of European system scaffolds. But today, Brand Access Solutions is pleased to declare itself UK leader in temporary construction access in all its forms, offering tube and fitting and modular system scaffolding as well as motorised access mast-climbing tower and hoists and its own branded QuikDeck suspended access systems, edge protection systems, G-Deck metal decking, and temporary roofing and shelters.
From its origins in the early 20th century, SGB grew steadily and came to dominate the UK market, becoming one of the best-known and most-respected names in the field of temporary access.
In 1986 SGB Group was acquired by contractor Mowlem, which floated the business in 1997, retaining 51% ownership. Mowlem sold its share in 2000 to Harsco, a US-based industrial group, which took the business back into private ownership. (Mowlem itself was acquired in 2005 by rival contractor Carillion – but that’s a different story.)
The new American owner saw no reason to retain the SGB brand and after a few years Harsco renamed the business Harsco Infrastructure – a name that provided a coherent corporate identity but had no resonance in SGB’s existing markets.
Harsco sold the business into a joint venture with fellow US industrial group Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services in October 2013. The new owner was private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) which bought both Harsco Infrastructure and Brand Energy at the same time and merged them to create one huge scaffolding and formwork giant.
A year later Harsco Infrastructure reintroduced the SGB brand and the business became Harsco/SGB. Of course, by this time, Harsco was completely out of the picture although the new owner, Brand, retained the right to use the name for a limited period.
In 2019 Brand acquired Lyndon Scaffolding and merged the two businesses. Now the name became Lyndon SGB by Brandsafway – or simply Lyndon SGB.
And that’s how the company remained known until last month when Brandsafway dropped all reference to SGB and Lyndon – a scaffolding firm founded by brothers Tommy and Paddy Lynch in 1968.
Now styled Brand Access Solutions, the business employs more than 1,100 staff in 15 locations across the UK and is capable of tackling construction access contracts of any size and in most sectors. Internationally, the parent company Brandsafway employs around 40,000 people over 340 locations and 26 countries.
“As the UK’s leading commercial access provider, we are excited to celebrate our new trading name which better reflects our market position and supports our customer-centric growth plans,” says Centin Baxter, European regional vice president for Brand Access Solutions.
“We plan to honour our rich heritage as an award-winning provider of scaffolding and access solutions by prioritising safety and innovation, delivering exceptional service to our clients, and exceeding our reputation for excellence. The team is ready to partner with clients to get their projects completed on time, on budget, with a high focus on safety, empowering them to accomplish more than ever before.”
And for the avoidance of doubt, the company confirmed that its “day-to-day operations, service offerings, strong industry relationships and dedication to safety” remain unchanged and are not impacted by the name change.
Still on top
For more than a century, the company that is now Brand Access Solutions (BAS) has delivered many award-winning scaffolding jobs.
Its latest accolade is the award for “Large Project of the Year” in the National Scaffolding & Access Confederation awards, held in November 2024.
This was awarded for the company’s work on the restoration of the Grade A-listed New Register House, home of Scotland’s National Records Office, in Edinburgh.
Working for main contractor Ashwood Scotland, Brand Access Solutions has erected £1.2m scaffold to completely envelop the building in a busy city-centre location with very limited site access.
With just one delivery window, open for only one hour per day, BAS installed the approximately 400 tonnes of equipment entirely by hand.
Even more impressive, BAS has also built a 46m-span temporary roofing over the top of the building.
The lack of any space for a crane meant that instead of adopting the preferred method of assembling roof sections at ground level and lifting them into place, the BAS team had to carry all the equipment by hand and assemble the roof in-situ.
The temporary roof is expected to remain on hire until May; the façade structure is due to be dismantled in the autumn.
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