With Howard Bunting as Managing Director and Janice, Jonathan and Simon Bunting as Directors, this is every inch the family business. ‘I’ve never heard of Bunting fencing’ I hear you cry, well that’s because these are none other than the names behind S.W. Marchant Ltd.

First established by Stan Marchant in 1970, the reigns were handed over to the Bunting family in May of 1993. No stranger to the industry, Howard Bunting had worked in commercial and private fencing for a good deal of time before then, as Jonathan tells me, “We have 37 years experience in security, domestic, commercial, sports, steel and wood fencing, be it erection or supply only.” And with some big names in the book, they are clearly well thought of in every field: “we do work for the MOD, Hampshire County Council and the local authorities,” Jonathan says, and it doesn’t end there.

S.W. Marchant have recently erected some very smart fencing at Southampton Docks, with Jonathan designing them himself to ensure they did exactly what was wanted. “With the boat show being held there, the fence needed to be constantly going up and down and moving about, and having gone down and shown them the designs in person and explained how they work, we were chosen to do the job, which we are very proud of. Indeed, nothing finishes off a fence like the Navigator Of The Sea lounging about in the background.

This isn’t the only prestigious job the Buntings have undertaken, with their fences going up at Southampton Football Club, Portsmouth Continental Port and surrounding the likes of mini-Buckingham Palace, Cape Canaveral and the fire truck challenge at Legoland, as well as various other retail parks and industrial estates. “We have eight full-time chaps who erect the fences, and more recently we’ve found ourselves on the road a fair bit, with work taking us to Canterbury, Luton, Plymouth, London and beyond,” Jonathan tells me. We are currently erecting a Dirickx “Codi” 3 metre high PPC green fence line with a 6 metre wide, 3 metre high double leaf gate at ASDAS, Chandlers Ford, Southampton to protect the Christmas stock from unwanted visitors. This fence line will be removable (base plated) so it can be erected at Christmas and removed and stored throughout the rest of the year.

So what’s for the future? “Once the weather improves, we’re building a new office, and possibly expanding the site.” With the buntings owning two and a half acres, and the site itself currently taking up three quarters of an acre, there’s plenty of room for expansion, should planning permission allow. And with being within a very affluent area, S.W. Marchant couldn’t be better off. Janice shows me the board of customer’s comments, which certainly explains how the company have landed such a lot of exciting work: they are clearly very highly regarded in their area.

Jonathan continues, “We are also currently updating our website, which I quite enjoy fiddling with – I tend to find it’s better if we can do some of it ourselves as the more you can keep in-house, the more control you have of things.”

So you can see why Jonathan has high hopes for the name of S.W. Marchant to continue within the Bunting blood line for many years to come, with his two sons, Ethan, 8, and Harry, 3, being eyed up for management potential already. “Hopefully they’ll take over one day,” Jonathan says, and by the time it’s their turn, who knows what other high profile accounts they’ll have – I wonder if the real Buckingham Palace has thought of getting a new set of gates…

For more information, call 01329 842100 or visit www.swmarchant.co.uk