BRITAIN'S biggest bulk haulage firm yesterday added £25m to its turnover, after buying a coke plant.

Hargreaves, based at Esh Winning, near Durham, bought the Monckton Coke & Chemical Company from UK Coal.

The plant, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, is the last independent coke producer in the UK, making 200,000 tonnes a year. It follows the recent acquisition of Barnsley bulk haulier, R Hanson & Son.

Peter Dillon, Hargreaves' finance director, said: "We will have to pause and draw breath while we absorb it, but we remain acquisitive."

He said the firm was continuing to add to its Durham workforce, taking on more drivers after expanding its administrative staff.

The deal will make Hargreaves the largest UK independent producer and distributor of coke products.

It is also poised to sign what it described as a potentially highly lucrative deal with a tyre shredding firm in Sheffield. This will see rubber from tyres carbonised and turned into coke at Monckton.

The plant already burns gases that are a by-product of coke making, generating six megawatts of electricity that is sold back to the National Grid.

Hargreaves plans to expand this facility to burn waste from its waste management division that would otherwise go to landfill.

The business was founded by Robert Young - life president of Newcastle United FC - in 1994. He sold it to a management buy-out team last year, for £19.2m.

It has since grown from employing 400 staff to more than 600, with 350 based at its headquarters.

Turnover this year is expected to be almost double the £65m it achieved last year. This has largely been driven by coal's attractiveness compared to high gas and oil prices.

"The cheapest megawatt of electricity is now produced from coal," said Mr Dillon.

The company also benefited from the closure of the region's last deep coal mine, Ellington Colliery, in Northumberland, earlier this year.

This meant UK Coal could not meet the volumes required and Hargreaves was called on to transport more imported coal.