Award for Moray stone mason Steven

AN AWARD-winning stonemasonry company is returning to its roots with the expansion of a new workshop in Elgin.

Laing Traditional Masonry (LTM) was the winner of the cHeRries Tremendous Training and Development award 2011 at a recent ceremony in Aberdeen.

The award was bestowed in recognition of the company’s renowned in-house training programme and establishment of its own training academy as an SQA-approved centre.

Group founder Steven Laing said: "It is good to get recognition for developing a new training model that can be taken into the 21st century."

LTM currently employs 55 people, including 38 stonemasons working out of bases in Elgin, Kirkcaldy, Stirling and Castle Fraser in Aberdeenshire.

Mr Laing, who served his own apprenticeship with the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) at Elgin Cathedral, established LTM Group in 1999 in his home town of Elgin.

Three years later the company moved to Castle Fraser at the request of NTS, and its headquarters are still there.

Mr Laing has gone on to establish bases in Kirkcaldy and now Stirling. He is also expanding an Elgin workshop, in the former Bon Accord building at Kingsmills, where 15 stonemasons currently work from.

"All of the guys there have gone through their training and are pretty experienced now, so we will be taking on another five trainees there," he said.

LTM’s stonemasons have worked on a range of projects, from small cottage renovations to large-scale castle projects.

LTM is now certified to deliver a National Progression Award in the Conservation of Masonry.

"These skills don’t get taught in formal colleges right now, so that is why we wanted to develop our own training academy," said Mr Laing.

The award citation praised Laing’s "commitment to training and development" as a benchmark for the construction industry.

The overall strategic objective of the company is ‘Building the future and repairing the past’.

The judges were very impressed with Mr Laing and his team, and said there was no better testament to the success of his passion for training and his craft than Marischal College in Aberdeen, the second largest granite structure in the world, which has undergone a major renovation in recent years, with much of the work carried out by LTM.

Other projects that LTM has been involved in or is still working on include Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire, Cullen House on the Seafield Estate in Banffshire, Coxton Tower at Lhanbryde and the Knockando Woollen Mill.