He quickly recognised that the material had considerable potential that nobody else appeared to be interest in; accordingly, in 1937, he founded a new company, Clugston Cawood, for the purpose of exploiting it.

The company undertook various civil engineering works throughout the conflict, taking on straightforwarding contracting work for the most part, such as the construction of air raid shelters and anti-glare pits as well as the erection of poles in large fields to stop enemy gliders landing as part of the anti-invasion preparations on the east coast.

[5][4] Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, Clugston focused on the construction, transportation, and the provision of bulk services to some of Britain’s largest companies.

[3] One frequent area of business was road construction; it would regularly receive contracts from bodies such as the Department of Transport to build bypasses and other schemes of a similar scale.

[19][20] During the late 2000s, business activity dipped, which was attributed to the unfavourable economic consequences of the Great Recession; the company responded with 200 redundancies.

[28] The group's losses were attributed to a combination of problematic waste-to-energy contracts and an "acute cash flow issue" that had been exacerbated by the June 2019 failure of a key subcontractor which resulted in "significant ransom positions from the supply chain".

[30] The company had grown through participation, via a partnership with France's CNIM, in the construction of numerous waste-to-energy plants; such projects had also caused financial problems for other contractors in the United Kingdom, including Costain and Interserve.