No Experience Required10/3/2025 Brethren Exposed investigation team have reported on many Brethren member businesses and some of the stories are quite remarkable, our latest investigation is a simply astonishing 'head scratcher'.
We have been aware for a couple of years of the existence of two companies that were experiencing significant growth and consistently winning government contracts in the Social Housing, Fire Safety Compliance sector. The companies Ventro Group & Harmony Fire, were both founded by members of the Melvin family from the UK. It was announced in the last couple of days (October 2025), that Harmony Fire had been awarded a £61 million contract over three years by Edinburgh City Council, though the contract was actually awarded in January 2025. Brethren Exposed decided to investigate further. The Melvin Family We have been contacted in the past about the a perceived lack of previous experience of the owners of Harmony Fire, in relation to fire safety and compliance, we had also seen similar comments to this effect on Glassdoor, the company review business. Therefore, it made sense to provide some detail to the background of the Melvin family. The Melvin family originate from the London Borough of Croydon before moving to Plymouth, there are four sons of Andrew Melvin, they are Graeme (60), Howard (58), Jim (54?) and Paul (49). Graeme Melvin, Warwick Melvin, Jake Melvin Graeme Melvin grew up in the Croydon area and is now based in Yeovil, he founded a specialist wholesale of books & gifts business called Oakridge Books & Gifts in the late 80's and ran the business until 2010, he then became an Area Sales Manager for a Sheffield based company called Mayfield Books & Gifts until 2012. Mayfield was owned by the Smith family, another brethren family. Oakridge & Mayfield both published local interest books. Mayfield was sold in 2017 to Outstanding Map Distributors Ltd. In 2012, Graeme joined the brethren Barter family business, Blake Envelopes in Yeovil, working in various roles until 2019, leaving Blake to join Harmony Fire. Since Graeme joined Harmony Fire sales revenue has exploded. Harmony Fire Ltd had been incorporated in 2016 by his two sons Warwick & Jake Melvin, at the time Warwick was just 24, and Jake 23. Previously, Jake and Warwick had both spent a year working for Ventro Ltd, in Plymouth, Ventro was owned by their uncle, Howard Melvin. Graeme and Jake Melvin are both trustees of the Ivel Gospel Hall Trust, a brethren meeting room charity in Yeovil. Jake and his brother Warwick are both trustees of the Thistledown Education Trust charity, a fundraiser for the local OneSchool Global brethren school. Howard Melvin, Ross Melvin, Harvey Melvin Howard Melvin originally from the Croydon area and now based in Plymouth, claims on his LinkedIn profile to have over 40 years of experience within the Fire Safety industry, we do not dispute this, as we have uncovered very little background prior to November 2013 when Howard incorporated a company called Ventro Ltd, with fellow directors, his wife Dawn Melvin and sons Ross Melvin and Harvey Melvin. Ross and Harvey would have been 23 and 20 years old back in 2013. In a similar fashion to Harmony Fire, Ventro has sustained substantial growth since 2019, culminating in private equity investment in 2025. Howard Melvin is a trustee of Compton Meeting Rooms Trust, a brethren meeting room charity in Plymouth. He was previously a director from 2011 to 2015 of the now dissolved M.Hall Construction (SW) Ltd, a company set up to manage the development of new brethren meeting rooms in the South West of the UK. Jim Melvin, Wade Melvin Jim Melvin is based in the Croydon area, initially a partner in a Surrey based business called Aim Office Supplies from 1989 until 2009, he then spent a year working in Sales for a company called Half Moon Group, owned by the brethren Doouss family and now known as HBS Group. Jim then moved to a brethren family business owned by the James family called Traffisafe (they invented the very good colour coded safety gloves), after seven years moving briefly for six months to the brethren Reiner family owned Bryson Products, Since 2019, he has been the Purchasing Manager for the brethren Dupont family, at a company called RVT Group in Dartford, another company that has experienced exponential growth since 2019. Wade Melvin, Jim's eldest son, is the Head of Operations at the Hales family owned Sante Group, having previously worked for Unispace and Joseph Giles. A little bit of trivia, it is likely that Jim Melvin went to school with model Kate Moss! Paul Melvin Paul Melvin is based in Plymouth, though originally from the Croydon area. As the youngest son of Andrew Melvin, he started his career at Aim Office Supplies, he then spent a year working at a company called Calkit Maintenance Supplies, he then joined Yeovil based SMD, originally at their Warlingham branch. Paul then moved to Crawley based OnSite Support, owned by the Lynes family, working their for 18 months up until early 2009 before moving to become a Sales Rep for Plymouth based Protective Wear Supplies (PWS), owned by the Burtenshaw family. Staying with PWS until founding Karntek Ltd in January 2017. On incorporation of Karntek the predominant shareholder was Aquilam Group Ltd, incorporated just a month before Karntek, and Aquilam Group was owned by Howard, Dawn, Ross, Jodie and Harvey Melvin. The Companies The companies involved in Fire & Safety compliance for the social housing sector include, the Melvin family businesses at the forefront, Ventro Group, Harmony Fire and Karntek. Then there is a mass of brethren member companies involved throughout the whole supply chain, particularly for fire safety doors and hardware. Brethren Exposed have been provided with evidence that the majority of these companies and trading names are involved in Fire Safety & Compliance supply chains. Ventro Group Plymouth based Ventro Group, are the 'Leading Fire Safety Specialist in the UK' according to their LinkedIn page, they were wholly owned by Howard Melvin and his family until July 2025, when the family took on private equity investment from Klar Partners. The initial business, Ventro Ltd was incorporated in November 2013, with Ventro Holdings Ltd established in December 2016. In March 2019, Aquilam Group Ltd was incorporated, followed a day later by Ventro Fire Compliance Ltd. In 2021, another business Firntec Ltd was connected to the group and finally in March 2022, Firntec Holdings Ltd was incorporated. Following the trail of published account we were able to estimate turnover in the early years for Ventro through until the reported turnover being published from 2021. We estimate that Ventro has grown by circa 540% in the last 5 years, with the business doubling in size over a 12 month period between April 2021 and March 2022. This doesn't include the Firntec business, which had not reached the threshold for reporting turnover, though we believe this was just below the threshold and could equate for another £8 million to £10 million in turnover on top of the figures below in 2024. 2015: Estimated Sales Revenue <£1 million 2016: Estimated Sales Revenue <£1 million 2017: Estimated Sales Revenue £3 million 2018: Estimated Sales Revenue £5 million 2019: Estimated Sales Revenue £6 million 2020: Estimated Sales Revenue £9 million 2021: Reported Sales Revenue £12.4 million 2022: Reported Sales Revenue £23.9 million 2023: Reported Sales Revenue £24.6 million 2024: Reported Sales Revenue £32.3 million In the published accounts for year ending 31st March 2024, Ventro Ltd reported they had 135 employees including the directors. 
Johnny Mercer MP - Cutting the ribbon for the new Ventro Group premises in 2018
Harmony Fire
Located in Yeovil, Harmony Fire categorise themselves on LinkedIn as 'The fire protection experts', they are owned by Australian Charles Hales, the youngest son of Plymouth Brethren leader Bruce Hales, American Matt Lock, along with Warwick and Jake Melvin, both sons of Graeme Melvin. The company was incorporated in October 2016, the holding company Poyntington Holdings Ltd was incorporated in May 2020, a further holding company Maperton Holdings Ltd was formed in November 2021. In September 2024, STQ Vantage was added to the group following the purchase of the business from another Yeovil based brethren family. In 2024 the group also purchased a further brethren business based in Chesterfield called Solidcor. The property investment arm Chilton Cantelo Estates Ltd, is also part of the group. Poyntington Holdings Ltd is the owner of Harmony Fire Ltd, the shareholders are Jake Melvin, Warwick Melvin, Clanalpine Investments Pty Ltd, Kathryn Lock - Westwood Investments Trust, Maperton Holdings Ltd, Curtis Hughes and Rohan Hughes. Clanalpine Investments Pty Ltd is based in Australia and is owned by one of Brethren Exposed old friends, Charles Hales! In fact Hales is the largest individual shareholder in the business! Charles Hales is the youngest son of Plymouth Brethren leader Bruce Hales, he was the co-owner with his brother Gareth Hales of Unispace Global, the largest PPE contract winner in the UK during Covid. He recently featured in the ITV documentary, Follow the Money - The Covid Contracts, in the UK. Westwood Investments Trust is an American Trust involving Matt Lock and his wife Kathryn. Matt Lock is heavily linked to the Hales family, he was previously a director of Unispace USA LLC alongside Charles & Gareth Hales. Matt Lock says he is a founder of Sante Group on his LinkedIn profile. Sante is owned by Charles & Gareth Hales. Ronan & Curtis Hughes own a very small percentage of shares, they were the brethren members that owned Solidcor prior to the sale to Harmony Fire. 
Poyntington Holdings Ltd - Articles of Association Oct 1st 2024
Each year in the UK, the Sunday Times publish a list of the fastest growing UK businesses, Brethren Exposed believe that Harmony Fire Ltd, has been missed, and is in fact one of the fastest growing companies in the UK, Harmony Fire themselves claim to be in the top 100 of fastest growing companies in Europe. In a similar fashion to Ventro, Harmony Fire as grown by winning multiple government contracts, culminating in the award of a contract worth £61 million, over 3 years, from Edinburgh City Council.
2017 Estimated Sales Revenue <£1 Million 2018 Estimated Sales Revenue <£1 Million 2019 Estimated Sales Revenue £4 Million 2020 Estimated Sales Revenue £7 Million 2021 Reported Sales Revenue £18.7 Million 2022 Reported Sales Revenue £26.9 Million 2023 Reported Sales Revenue £31.9 Million 2024 Reported Sales Revenue £44.8 Million According to their published accounts for year ending 31st December 2024. Harmony Fire employs 134 staff, including the directors. In 2025, the company sponsored and led Housing Summit Conferences in London and Edinburgh, with key speakers including Dame Judith Hackett, and Peter Apps. Dame Hackett was the chair of the independent review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, commissioned by the UK government following the Grenfell Tower fire. Peter Apps is a fantastic journalist, that has worked tirelessly on safety reporting following Grenfell. Though, as the ABC Four Corners documentary reported recently, Bruce Hales the leader of the Plymouth Brethren has stated that all journalists are 'trash'. Harmony Fire has an active partnership with the Plymouth Brethren charity, Rapid Relief Team. Karntek
Karnteck Ltd is based in Stafford, and is a team of Fire and Building Safety Consultants. The business is owned by Paul Melvin and his wife Cheryl, his brother in laws Jonathan and Russell Pallister, along with their wives Nicola and Rebecca. The company was incorporated in January 2017, originally the company was owned by Aquilam Group, the business owned by Paul's brother Howard, though a few months later the Aquilam Group shares were transferred to Paul & Cheryl Melvin. Karntek has not experienced the growth of Ventro or Harmony Fire, reporting in the last set of accounts as having 16 employees and likely being a business with sales revenue of around £1 million. Firntec
Plymouth based Firntec was established in June 2021 by Howard, Harvey and Ross Melvin along with Frazer Keam. Originally as a subsidiary of Aquilam Group and Ventro Holdings. The business provides fire safety consultancy, surveying and inspection services. The company became part of Firntec Holdings, a company incorporated in March 2022. The shareholder being Howard Melvin and his wife Dawn, Harvey and his wife Katie-Lee along with Ross and his wife Jodie. Firntec Holdings along with Ventro took on private equity in July 2025 from Klar Partners. The accounts for year ending 31st March 2025 suggest that with 38 employees and assets of £5.4 million, that Firntec would likely have a turnover of £10 million+. Solidcor
Chesterfield based Solidcor was incorporated in December 2019. The original shareholder was brethren member Ian Hughes. The shares transferred to Curtis and Rohan Hughes in August 2024. The company was taken over in October 2024 and became a subsidiary of Poyntington Holdings, along with Harmony Fire. According to their website, Solidcor founders saw the need for rapid change, in the wake of the Grenfell disaster. The goal to significantly enhance fire door performance and production times. The company grew rapidly, and in the four years since incorporation their published accounts for year 2023 reported they had amassed assets of of £775,000, and were employing 21 staff. This would indicate sales revenue of many millions, likely due to the connection to Harmony Fire and a related company called Rutland Trading Co Ltd. Rutland Trading Co
Rutland Trading Co was incorporated by the Hughes family in April 2011 and is based in Chesterfield, original shareholders being Ian Hughes & Lydia Hughes (80%) and parents David & Alison Hughes (20%). The company remained dormant until April 2013 and it first reported sales revenue was in 2014. A video on YouTube states the business started in 2004. Rutland Trading Co is a supplier of door controls, specialising in closers for fire doors, it is now owned by Ian & Lydia Hughes and their two sons Rohan and Curtis Hughes. The company shows exceptional growth in the 10.5 years since it stated trading, though not matching the speed of growth for Harmony Fire and Ventro. The published account for year ending 31st December 2024, show sales revenue of £13.1million and stong assets of £7.3 million. The company employs 31 people. Datim
Datim is also based in Chesterfield and is owned by Mike Hughes and his sons Cameron, Darren and Garry. Mike is the brother of Ian Hughes who founded Rutland Trading Co and Solidcor. Datim supplies doorsets and ironmongery including fire door installation sundries. Datim Ltd was incorporated in December 2013, with Mike Hughes and Bridget Hughes the original shareholders. Datim Holdings Ltd was incorporated in November 2019 and this became the parent company of Datim Ltd in 2020. The shareholders of Datim Holdings are Mike, Cameron, Darren, Garry Hughes & their wives. The last published accounts for 2024 shows a sales revenue of over £18 million and assets of £7.1 million. The company employs 90 people. Concealed Integrated Systems
Concealed Integrated Systems Company Ltd (CISCO), is a separate entity but linked to the Datim, with the same shareholders as Datim Holdings Ltd. The company supplies concealed doors and frames, panel doors, sliding doors and flush doorsets. Employing 3 people, the company that was incorporated in September 2019 is still relatively small. STQ Vantage
STQ Vantage Ltd is located in Yeovil. Incorporated in July 2019 by brethren members, Jonathan Potter, his wife Erica and two sons Alec and Kelvin. In September 2024 the company became a subsidiary of Poyntington Holdings Ltd, alongside Harmony Fire and Solidcor. STQ Vantage provides consultancy, design, installation and certification for roof and fall protection systems. Accounts published for year ending 2024, show a company with 9 employees and we estimate sales revenue of circa £1.5 to £2 million. Auro Door
Auro Door was launched by Harmony Fire in June 2025, and is a smart fire door. Dorplan
Located in Downham Market, Dorplan Contracts Ltd was incorporated under the name Regional Consultants (Employment Specialist) in November 1977. The company is owned by the brethren Evershed family via a company called Bexwell Holdings Ltd. Originally the business was founded to supply architectural ironmongery but as shifted towards doorsets. The business moved in 2009 to new purpose built premises and now supplies a range of doorsets, include their SignetFire range of fire doors. The company is much more established than other brethren member companies in this sector. In the last published accounts, the company employees 86 people, has recorded sales revenue of £14.4 million, with assets of £6.4 million. Metador
Metador Ltd is based in Middlesbrough, and was incorporated in September 2019. The company is owned by Metador Property Holdings Ltd, which in turn is owned by Metador Holdings Ltd. The ultimate owner is Simon Evershed (not a close relative of the Evershed's from Dorplan Contracts). The company supplies steel doors including fire doors. Their website shows case studies for the Houses of Paliament, Lloyds Register, Cineworld and Wernick Buildings Ltd. The last published accounts for Metador, show 3 employees, assets of just £263. There is another company Seamer UK Ltd also owned by Simon Evershed that would appear to be an investment company. The accounts filed for Metador seem at odds with their website case studies. We can only assume that the trading is carried out by a Trust, Partnership or Sole Trader. There is evidence of a £3 million investment in a new factory in 2023. 
Ben Houchen, Mayor of Tees Valley. Opening new facility for Metador.
Strongdor
Located in Carnforth, Strongdor Ltd was incorporated in June 2009, the company is owned by Strongdor Holdings Ltd. The shareholders include Oliver Whiley, Elizabeth Whiley, Tim Devenish, Stefan Devenish, Alys Devenish, Matthew Devenish, Joanne Devenish, Pamela Devenish, Terry James, Victoria James and Clive Hobbs. The company supplies Steel doors, including fire doors. The business is well established but is showing substantial growth over the last 3 years, with sales revenue of £23.8 million in 2024 up from £10.7 million in 2021. The company employs 131 people. Dorsuite/Scotdor
Based in Glasgow, Dorsuite was incorporated in July 2023. The company is linked to the Fulcher, Wilkinson and Brown families. They supply Doorset solutions including PyroSuite, which is their fire door brand. It is difficult to ascertain where the financials sit for Dorsuite and Scotdor. It would suggest there is a trust or partnership involved that is not visible on companies house. Specialist Door Solutions/SDS Protection
The Surrey based Specialist Door Solutions Ltd and SDS Protection are owned by the James & Blake families. SDS Protection (Holdings) Ltd is the shareholder in both companies. Shares are split between Darren Blake, Julianne Blake, Gillian James and Russell James. They also have brethren consultant Rob Critchley as a director. The company specialises in supplying doorsets for healthcare, including fire doors. The company bucks the upward sales growth of most other brethren businesses. In 2024, sales fell from £11.8 million the previous year, to £9.9 million. Employees number 59. The company has a large loan that costs £80,000 per month, though at a very low 2% per annum. Specialist Doors Solutions were a small PPE contract winner with the DHSC back in 2020. We haven't included every doorset and architectural ironmongery company ran by brethren members in the UK. The above is a selection to emphasize the sheer scale of the Fire Protection & Safety business led by the Hales & Melvin families through Harmony Fire & Ventro. As we investigated the public contracts and framework agreements we were surprised to find that their is only a small number of companies operating as bespoke Fire Safety & Compliance businesses in the UK. In terms of the scale the brethren companies are the biggest bespoke companies, others larger non-brethren companies tend to be more general contractors for all types of building and facilities management.
Contracts
We mentioned previously that both Ventro and Harmony Fire had been on the Brethren Exposed radar for some time. This was due to the number of contracts they were winning. A check on the English based Contracts Finder website shows that since the 1st June 2017, that Harmony Fire have been included 104 times for direct contracts or on framework agreements. Ventro Ltd since the 3rd February 2016 have been included on these types of contracts and framework agreements 127 times, not including the 19 times that Firntec have also been included.
In 2025, Harmony Fire have been awarded contracts of over £80 million and we still have nearly a quarter of the year remaining. Ventro/Firntec so far this year have been awarded contracts in the region of £17 million. These are actual contracts, not potential from framework agreements. It would appear that the companies are on course to surpass £100 million in 2025. Brethren Exposed investigated the biggest award in 2025, which was made at the start of the year by City of Edinburgh Council. It was worth over £61 million and went to Harmony Fire. Government contracts can be awarded in two ways in the UK. It can be via a direct 'traditional' tender process, where there is a direct need, say electrical upgrades in a council owned nursing home and the council invites tenders and then reviews and chooses the best one against a set of pre-defined measures or requirements, such as price, quality, completion times. It could also be from a framework agreement, this is where, for example, a group of local councils pool their resources and look at the likely electrical upgrades in all their nursing homes over a 5 year period. There are number of these procurement 'buying groups' in the UK, often run as a non-profits. They are funded by the buyer or supplier paying a small percentage of the contracts awarded back to buying group. There are many benefits to using framework agreements for both the buyers and the suppliers. There would be a tender process as there is with a traditional tender process and rather than awarding to the one supplier, they would pick the best selection against the preset requirements. So for electrical upgrades in Nursing Homes, there maybe 10 suppliers eligible to be used by the councils for the work they need over the next 5 years. They can then use mini-tender processes or do an assessment to choose the best supplier that matches their need from the list of 10 suppliers. Once they award to one supplier this is an actual contract. In the award by City of Edinburgh Council, they used a framework agreement from an organisation called Prosper. Prosper was founded in 2008 when a group of social landlords from the North East of England formed NE Procurement to create greater efficiencies via unified procurement, these include Northumberland County Council and a number of housing associations. In 2017 NE Procurement became Prosper. Prosper created The Passive Fire Safety Framework in 2023 for Scotland and Northern Ireland. The process gave a scope of works that would need to be carried out including Fire Door replacement and repair. The benefits of this solution would be that suppliers have been rigorously assessed to ensure they have the capability to deliver the work safely, and to regulatory standards. It also included some social value (a return to the social landlord to support the community). The solution offer a direct award (giving the contract with any competition) or a Further Competition mini tender between the selected suppliers. In June 2024, a paper/presentation was put forward by the City of Edinburgh Council, Housing Service Director & Operations Manager to the Finance & Resource committee, proposing that they use Harmony Fire to complete the upgrade of Fire Safety doors across the estate of multi storey residential properties across Edinburgh. The file is attached below. 
The report provides a lot of supporting evidence for the contract to be awarded to Harmony Fire. If anything it comes across as the Housing team trying to "sell" to the Finance committee. What we picked out is that they wanted to use a bespoke fire protection and compliance company, that they had used Harmony Fire previously on another much smaller contract and that they basically ticked all the boxes. They say it would have cost £1 million if they were to put out to a full tender and taken 12 months. We are unsure how they estimated a cost of £1 million.
The end result is that the finance committee approved the contract and six months later in January 2025, the contract was awarded to Harmony Fire. Brethren Exposed decided to go back and review who the other options were on the Prosper Framework agreement, what we found was rather surprising!
In total by using the Prosper Framework agreement, City of Edinburgh Housing department had a choice of just five suppliers. Two of these suppliers were based in Scotland, but both were general contractors, who undertook lots of different elements of building and safety work. They were both much larger companies (eight to ten times bigger) in terms of both annual revenue and employees, but they didn't meet the 'we want a specialist Fire Protection and Compliance company". This left three companies, one of these was a company based in Northern Ireland and was much smaller than Harmony Fire, with just 23 employees and was also a more general contractor. So due to the requirement of a specialist company, (we do wonder who decided this and why was this criteria so important?), they had a choice of just two companies! Harmony Fire, and we think you will have guessed, Ventro! 
Eligible Suppliers from the Prosper Framework Agreement
The report submitted to the resources committee suggest they chose Harmony Fire for both the price and quality. What the report doesn't clarify, is if this was based on all five suppliers or just Harmony Fire and Ventro. There doesn't seem to be any mention that a £61 million contract over three years, would mean that Harmony Fire had the majority 'of their eggs in one basket' or that they had never won an award of this size previously. In fact reading the paper put forward by the housing department, it did have a feel of 'we are covered because Prosper did the due diligence'.
The contract also included a social value aspect which means the have to give eight x two week work experience placements for council tenants, provide four new apprenticeships for young people within a council tenancy, some construction event at local colleges and a minimum of £20,000 donation to local campaigns of groups particularly aimed at improving social spaces or gardens in local communities. We wonder if some of the latter is covered by brethren charity the Rapid Relief Team? Rapid Relief Team
The Rapid Relief Team is the main Plymouth Brethren Christian Church charity, set up on the back of the UK charity commission appeal in 2013. The charity provides free catering to emergencies services workers at incidents and also at some other charity events. They also provide food boxes to a variety of charities. Harmony Fire has become a partner of Rapid Relief Team (RRT). This has included Harmony Fire staff packing food boxes on behalf of RRT and supplying food boxes to local charities, particularly in the areas that have been awarded contracts. We have evidence that food boxes have been supplied jointly with the City of Edinburgh Council, Sheffield City Council, St Ledger Homes, The Guinness Partnership, Karbon Homes, and LiveWest. It is all part of their ESG efforts.
At Brethren Exposed we struggle on the overall ethics of this partnership, we will see at the end of the year that Rapid Relief Team will report they supplied 'X' amount of Food Boxes and this is evidence of their work outside of their own community. In essence though some of this will have been funded by an agreement in a contract with Harmony Fire, who will have funded the food boxes tax free and even had their own staff pack them.
This type of agreement does run a risk of which came first 'the Chicken or the Egg' or 'the RRT support or the Contact award". Support of charitable events in Edinburgh such as the North Edinburgh Community Festival by the Rapid Relief Team would be a good example, the loss of this support can hit a community organisers hard. We have reported previously on our concerns that despite the undoubted good work of the Rapid Relief Team, that they often cross the hypocrisy line. We have aired our concerns that the cost to the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church to donate cash and services, like the Rapid Relief Team, to the wider non-brethren community, is miniscule when compared to the value of having charitable status in monetary value to the Brethren. To clarify, we are not suggesting anything untoward by any of the parties above. Cladding
In the final part of our investigation we look at some connections to Harmony Fire and Ventro.
We are sure that everyone is aware of the terrible Grenfell Tower tragedy, a fire that spread due to the cladding installed and resulted in the loss of 72 lives in June 2017. Looking at Harmony Fire and Ventro LinkedIn posts, it is no surprise, that for two companies working in fire protection, safety and compliance that Grenfell is often mentioned, we know that the Rapid Relief Team attended the Grenfell Tower fire, supporting the emergencies services with their signature burgers and drinks. We also noted above that at the Harmony Fire sponsored Housing Summit in both London and Edinburgh this year, that key speakers were Dame Judith Hackett and Journalist Peter Apps. At Brethren Exposed we are also aware of a brethren company that supplied cladding (not to Grenfell). This company operated in Australia, USA and in the UK. In Australia the company was liquidated, and pretty much carried on under a new name, there is a class action and it is still rumbling slowly through the courts. In the UK, an article was published by the BBC Newsnight after officials pulled a potentially unsafe product Vitracore G2 from sale. Valcan Ltd, director Alan Lamming insisted the product was safe. In September 2021, Valcan Ltd went into voluntary liquidation. The company now is known as Fairview Europe Ltd trading as Valcan. The cladding story is a complex story and we are not suggesting any wrong doing by any of the companies named above. We did note the coincidental fact that there is a family connection to the Melvin family at Valcan, Carlton Shaw is the brother in law of Harvey Melvin and the brother of Katie-Lee Melvin, Carlton's wife is also one of the Melvin cousins. 
Summary
Our dive into Ventro & Harmony Fire shows two of the fastest growing companies in Europe, we found that they are all one family and that the Hales family have jumped on the bandwagon. The supply chain for both companies is likely to be heavily linked to other brethren member companies. That there is a lack of Fire Prevention and Safety Compliance specialist companies in the UK. That you can grow a business from scratch, without any real experience in less than 10 years and be on course to deliver a combined £100 million+ sales revenue in 2025. That you can link to a partner charity, use it with your client base and all three benefit. That even with the transparency of council meeting minutes there are still areas that need clarifying. That for local council procurement, due diligence can be 'palmed out' to someone else to take responsibility. That life after Grenfell in the safety industry is still full of potential pitfalls and that change is slow and difficult. Finally, we ask are the Plymouth Brethren, good folk that have helped when help is needed with the floods in New Zealand, the Ukraine War, the Covid Pandemic and the fallout from the Grenfell Tower fire, or are they disaster capitalists that have benefitted in billions of pound/dollars of contracts by utilising the Rapid Relief Team or by lobbying political figures? At Brethren Exposed, we just report facts, we are not inferring in any way that any of the above have done anything untoward.
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