In 2021, North Shore Scaffolding celebrates 40 years in business. The incorporation date is 1 August 1981 — but the company's roots run much deeper, back through the history of New Zealand construction.
It started with Winstones — a New Zealand company dating to 1869 and then the country's main supplier of building materials — and Fletcher Construction, with origins in 1909. In 1937 the two set up Certified Concrete as a joint venture.
For the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, Fletcher Construction brought tube-and-clip scaffolding over from England. The Expo ran for six months from November 1939 to May 1940 and drew more than 2.6 million visitors, marking a hundred years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Afterwards, Certified Scaffolding was set up as a subsidiary of Certified Concrete, using the scaffolding already acquired.
Skip forward more than 30 years: Graham Curran was working at Certified Scaffolding when Tony Webb joined in 1973, part of a team of 20-plus scaffolders working the black steel tube and clip. Con Marney, a Brit, had run Certified Scaffolding since its inception.
In 1979 the Certified Concrete joint venture split: Winstones took the Auckland and Nelson operations, the rest went to Fletcher Holdings. In Auckland, the Certified Scaffolding equipment came up for sale — and Tony and Graham re-mortgaged their houses to buy it. Certified threw in a couple of old trucks to help them on their way, and North Shore Scaffolding began trading on 1 August 1981. The team was Graham, Tony, and a few of the old Certified crew who came across with them.
1981 was a hard year to start a company — the country was in recession, and putting your house up as collateral was a bold move. For its first six months, the company was run out of Tony and Christine Webb's one-year-old daughter's bedroom in their Glenfield home. The baby moved out and the company moved in. Con Marney, who'd retired in 1980, came back part-time as a draftsman for a few years; Christine remembers his "desk" being a chest freezer in the makeshift office.
The gear had previously been stored at Winstones' yards at Madeira Lane, off upper Symonds Street. It was moved to a roughly 5-hectare grass field off Wairau Road, between Hillside Road and Diana Drive, that also belonged to Winstones. That field is industrial land today — home to Volkswagen, McDonald's, Honda, Storage King and others.
After 18 months the gamble started to pay off. The company took on two men, then a few more, then a few more again, growing as the country climbed out of recession.
In February 1982 the company moved out of the Glenfield house to a yard at 67 Hillside Road in Wairau Valley, a stone's throw from the Winstones site. The land — once residential, now industrial — had its house removed, and the offices were set up on the top floor of an existing outbuilding.
By the mid-80s NSS needed new offices again, and bought a double portacom second-hand at auction. It had previously served the second stage of the Glenbrook Steel Mill construction; it was moved to 67 Hillside Road, where it still stands today, housing the company's offices.
As the company grew, the yard filled with gear rather than parked cars. Staying on the same site since 1982 — now with over 40 staff and a great deal more gear — is a testament to the company's gear management. As Managing Director Clifton Webb jokes:
"We are the ultimate jugglers, and the trick is to keep 9 scaffolds on site for every one we have in the yard. So far, so good."
At first the yard housed a few other small companies, but by 2015 NSS occupied all of 67 Hillside Road. In 2008 the Webb family became sole owner of the company; in 2011 it was restructured to incorporate NSS Limited. Clifton Webb, son of Tony and Christine, runs the family company today from those same portacom offices.