With sites in the Thames Valley, the Midlands, the North West and the South West, TFG is ideally placed to support your facilities maintenance and asset management needs throughout London and across the UK, in both public and private sector establishments.

A company’s heritage demonstrates where it is rooted, and TFG’s roots go back more than a century. Our heritage is in the manufacture and supply of compressed air equipment, and in the supply of air-conditioning and refrigeration systems. Recent diversification has added newer technologies to the TFG portfolio, including the maintenance of bio-medical equipment.

Air compressors have been used since the 1770s, when they were powered by water wheels, though the first widespread use of compressed air in industry was not until 1888 in Paris. In 1902, Whittaker Hall Ltd was formed in Radcliffe, Manchester, to manufacture equipment for the textile industry. By 1936, the successor company, Whittaker Hall 1929 Limited, had developed several early rotary-vane compressor designs. During the war, experimentation by Major P. C. Bird with forced-oil feeding to improve product efficiencies at higher pressures,led to the post -war licence (from Alfred Bullows Ltd.) for Whittaker Hall to manufacture compressors for pressures up to 7 bar at 500 dm³/s. Subsequent extensions to the compressor range, followed by some commercial developments within the organisation in the 1960s, resulted in the registering of the well-known Fluidair trademark in 1969. It was used during the 1970s and 1980s by the then IMI Fluidair Limited, which was born from the earlier companies. Considerable production expansion took place at this time and in the early 1990s Fluidair Compressors Limited was formed following a management buyout – led by Paul Dickinson – of the IMI Fluidair organisation. Today Fluidair, headed by Trevor Davison (see below), is a descendant of that organisation, and uses the heritage products born from the previous 107 years.

Meanwhile, in 1948, Frank Scotford and Jack Teasdale, two great friends who were electricians with Callis Sons and May in Reading, had decided to start their own refrigeration business. They formed a partnership called Scotford & Teasdale, forever afterwards known as simply ‘S & T’, which built a steady business and a strong reputation in London and the Home Counties area. When Frank Scotford retired in 1959 his share was bought out by Jack Teasdale and when Jack retired in 1970, the business was bought by three of his key employees. Air-conditioning was by this stage a major part of the business though refrigeration remained important. By 1987 only one of the three 1970 purchasers, Marcus Aurelius, was left running the business, and he moved to premises near Reading.

This is where S & T first encountered Trevor Davison, who had founded BCAS (British Compressed Air Services) in 1987, and under his guidance had developed into a very successful business. It too had moved to the same industrial estate as S & T. Trevor and Marcus, and their respective workers, developed strong friendships. When the time came for Marcus to retire in 2004, Trevor and Marcus agreed to merge the companies, retaining the staff, customers and reputations of both businesses.

Over the next 2 years, several other businesses working in close association with Trevor became part of his core operation, such as Norton Environmental Services and a bio-medical services company which Trevor co-founded. BCAS Bio-Med, supplies managed service contracts, training, and associated medical equipment services for healthcare providers. These include many large NHS sites and PCTs.

Trevor saw the opportunity that formally joining forces with these other enterprises with linked products and services would bring to his operation and valued client base. Thus, in January 2007, the Thames Facilities Group was established, with Trevor Davison as Managing Director. The groups’ ethos stems from the “Human Touch” with regards to customer care, which Trevor considers is disappearing in today’s age of call centres and impersonal response. This ethos is maintained by keeping the heritage brand names and infrastructure of the member companies for the benefit of their many valued clients.

When the opportunity arose in 2009 to merge the now included Mid-Tech Services and Fluidair brands into the group, Trevor wasted no time in further adding to the TFG tree.