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Until the 1800s, Norwich was the capital and market leader in the cotton and wool industry before industrialisation took this business to the North of England.  The madder plant was used extensively in the dyeing process to produce cloth of a rich red colour, and it was this colour that was chosen for new bollards from Bollards International.  Norwich City Council is the first customer to be supplied with this unique Enviro-cast, pigmented product made from natural material.

 Bollards International, is the Norfolk-based company at the forefront of the manufacture of polymer street furniture.  Over the past twenty-five years, the company’s sister operation, IFS Chemicals, a formulation house which specialises in developing polyurethane chemicals for a wide cross-section of worldwide industries, has developed plant and processes to produce polyurethane materials from naturally occurring oils and fats, in this instance, rape seed oil.  This material is then used in the manufacture of its product range.

 “It is fitting that Norwich, the county town of Norfolk where Bollards International is based, should be the first recipient of our new bollards manufactured from natural material,” explains Dr Barrie Colvin, Managing Director of Bollards International.  “We have designed, built and commissioned a plant at our site in Roydon near Kings Lynn to manufacture polyol from rape seed oil.  The entire operation is based in East Anglia; industrial grade rape-seed oil is produced in the region, having been grown by local farmers.  It is then used to manufacture the polyol in Roydon.”

 As the sole supplier of the ‘Norwich Bollard’, which is itself a unique design, Bollards International has now supplied the city with 34 new, magenta bollards.  Twenty-one of these are fitted with finials, eleven of which are of one off design, themed on the history and culture of the area.