Mr Falconry, Specialist Pest Control
"I didn't have the confidence to put together a tender for the work at Thornton and as a sole proprietor, I didn't have the time either."
When Russell Robertson of Fife-based MR Falconry was invited to tender for the contract to keep vermin away from the local authority Transfer Station he’d been working at for five years, he thought he would have to “move on” somewhere else.
Russell’s four Harris Hawks, a Goshawk and a Peresaker (a hybrid raptor) are used to deter vermin from the Fife Council site, in Thornton, where waste is sorted for either recycling or landfill.
“Basically, it is a preventative measure,” he explained. “I patrol the site with the birds of prey and they discourage species on the vermin list from scavenging at the site.
“I wasn’t going to go for the contract. I was just going to move on to another job. I didn’t have the confidence to put together a tender for the work at Thornton and as a sole proprietor, I didn’t have the time either. I rarely take a day off and I didn’t know how to go about filling in the application paperwork.”
That was when he heard of Fife Business Gateway who offered support and recommended he get help with applying for the tender from Intend.
“Gill came here a few times and spoke to me. I knew all the information that was needed, but I didn’t know how to put that into the appropriate words. Gill did that for me and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be working here any longer. That is 100% true. If it wasn’t for her work on the tender and the help I got from others like Business Gateway, I wouldn’t have put in for the contract. I would totally recommend Intend to anybody. Gill was absolutely brilliant.”
