New APHC President Vows to Tackle Rogue Traders

APHC's newly-appointed president has said the association will do everything in its power to crack down on cowboy contractors. 

Andrew Crookes, who made his inaugural speech at the President's Dinner in mid-June, said: “We are putting significant resource into lobbying Government and related organisations to introduce mechanisms to differentiate quality competent contractors from rogue traders in the industry."

APHC currently has 244 of its approved contractors registered with WaterSafe.

“In the gas industry, there is clear evidence to indicate that approximately 50% of all gas work undertaken by illegal installers falls into the classification of being dangerous, these figures have now been fully quantified and are available," added Mr Crookes.

"As a result we are working on an initiative with key members of the gas supply chain, including manufacturers and merchants, to place greater focus on clearly promoting the use of registered installers to the consumer and the potential consequences of not doing so. As part of the initiative we are also proposing to incentivise the use of registered installers by limiting manufacturer warranties on installation work undertaken by the non-registered."

Andrew has been in the plumbing and heating industry since 1979 when he started his apprenticeship for J.S and C.W. Crookes, a firm run by his father and mother in Huddersfield. He trained at the Percival Whitley College in Halifax, undertaking a four year apprenticeship which also included the oxy-acetelene welding of mild steel pipelines. He worked for his parents’ firm for 20 years before they retired in 1999. Andrew then carried on the business, changing the name to Andrew Crookes Plumbing and Heating.

Mr Crookes said of APHC and of his new role: “I became interested in the APHC after attending local Huddersfield Master Plumbers meetings with my father, and I continue to attend and play an active role in our local group. After being President of Huddersfield Master Plumbers, I was then asked to be President of the North East Region of APHC which I gladly accepted. I became a Director of APHC in 2008, after being on the APHC Technical services working group for a number of years previous to that, a role I still fulfill today on both groups.

“I am passionate about our industry, especially, the smaller businesses, which I feel are put under too many onerous paper trails and directives from Government and Europe. I look forward to my year in office and to meeting the many Industry leaders in construction with who I can discuss possible solutions to achieving improved trading conditions."