Portal Products has refused to let the flood chaos that has swamped much of the country stand in the way of its delivery schedules, thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of staff.

The specialist manufacturer of door products has maintained production despite flash floods and the two-week loss of water supply, which crippled manufacturing businesses across the South West and Midlands, this July and August.

Based in Cheltenham, Portal took the brunt of the torrential downpours that led to flash floods and the loss of water supply after a regional pumping station became flooded.

But the downpour didn’t dampen the spirits of the Portal team. Despite needing large quantities of water for manufacture and sanitation the company was able to continue operation by importing water from outside the flood hit area.

In all the business brought in 8,000 litres of water for production and sanitation use and a further 1,500 litres of bottled water for employees.

To maintain production water was poured into garden sprays an applied manually replacing mechanical spraying and the header tanks for the vacuum formers were filled by hand allowing manufacture to continue uninterrupted.

Portal also hired a pump to feed the header tank for a toilet block and appointed a dedicated team of cleaners, as well as buying anti-bacterial hand gel to make sure hygiene standards were maintained.

Eugene Martinez, general manager, said: “We needed water for use with the vacuum forming equipment and glue lines and obviously for drinking and flushing, all very basic stuff but fundamental to the operation of our business.

“To overcome the loss of water we purchase eight 1,000 litre containers and travelled outside the region to fill them. We also brought in drinking water, disposable cups and appointed a dedicated cleaning team to maintain standards of hygiene.

“We’re absolutely delighted by the way everyone pulled together and want to say a big thank you to all the team for their hard work and commitment in helping us to keep disruption to our customers to an absolute minimum.”