About Us

MJ Church operates across the contracting and waste sectors in England. For more information about our two areas of business, please visit the relevant website.

Our People

Ben Staff

Group Managing
Director

Tom Church

Director

Luke Holyoak

Earthworks
Director

Claire Coetzee

Civil Engineering
Director

Mark Taylor

waste management
Director

OUR STORY

1972
Cement Mixers
Having previously been a plant mechanic, Mike Church went self-employed and was approached by a brickwork contractor who asked him to service their 70+ cement mixers. When mixers were beyond repair, Mike was asked to hire in replacements, and he soon realised the potential of this business, and started buying his own.
1974
MJ Church Plant
With around 80 mixers on hire, Mike & Paula had enough capital to start MJ Church Plant with a digger, a roller and a dumper. By 1978 the business had grown and now with a fleet of 10 excavators and a team of drivers, they were hiring to construction sites all over the area.
1990
Second Severn Crossing
The next big turning point was winning the contract to haul 1.5 million tonnes of material to build the second Severn Crossing. Paula said: “We were very reactive on this job and we went all out and bought 15 new lorries and four machines because we could see there was value in the project, and we always said we’d sell them afterwards, but we never did because the job went really well and we won more work off the back of it.”
1994
Cardiff Bay Barrage
MJ Church won the contract to haul 3 million tonnes of stone to create the Cardiff Barrage. Mike said: “This was a really interesting and challenging job. We had to design new bodies for the lorries so they could handle the big pieces of stone and tip them out comfortably at the docks, and this led on to some more sea defence work, because we already had the lorries. It was exciting and again, we were punching way above our weight.”
2006
Cabot Circus, Bristol
When constructed, this was the biggest off-site earthmoving job ever done in Bristol, and MJ Church won the contract to deliver it. Mike said: “This job had to be done quickly, and on some days we had 200 lorries in there. That was when we really started to get into real civil engineering because it was a very deep excavation. This was a milestone job for us that catapulted us into ‘real’ civil engineering because it was a very deep excavation.”
2011
Technology
In 2011 Paula & Mike’s son Tom joined the business and led the acquisition of a technology business, MSA365, putting themselves at the forefront of construction technology and machine telematics. Since then, the business has become one of the most technologically advanced contractors in the UK.
2019
Largest Framework Contract
In 2019 MJ Church won a place on National Highways’ Scheme Delivery Framework, to deliver highways projects across the Strategic Road Network (SRN) from Kent to Cornwall, worth £90 million over 6 years.
2021
Largest Contract Win
In 2021 MJ Church won its largest contract to date – delivering the earthworks on the A465 Heads of the Valleys Improvement Scheme in Wales, worth £65 million.

Our Accreditations