With the current year steaming ahead of us, quicker than we could imagine, we thought it would be insightful to take a look back on 2021 and see what challenges we overcame, amazing things we achieved and contemplate on our year here at Number1Plates.

 

Northern Enterprise Award

We thought that we’d kickstart it off with one of our biggest achievements yet… winning one of the ‘Northern Enterprise Awards’. When we were approached with the listings of the Award, we were thrilled to have been selected and were feeling fantastic that we were in the choosings. When the final results came through and it became apparent that we had won, the whole work-force was overjoyed. Our hard-work had paid off, and there is no greater feeling than that itself! 

After a few very tough years for everybody, the award we were presented with seemed to perfectly summarise that proud and appreciative mutual-feeling between us all. ‘Team’ seems a little too meager, ‘family’ fits us better. 

To the Northern Enterprise Awards, we’d like to say a huge thank you for deliberating and concluding on Number1Plates as a winner, although it’s not the winning that counts, it certainly made us feel fantastic!

Charity

At the start of 2021, we had all decided that although we were doing bits for charity, we were doing nowhere near enough! Conversations were exchanged and meetings were attended. We were pushing our charity work for good. We began our work through training hard for the gruelling ‘Yorkshire Three Peak’ challenge. Tough considering none of us were particularly athletes! After a lot of deliberation on what charities we could help, as we wanted to help them all, we settled on ‘The Yorkshire Air Ambulance’ and ‘Mission Motorsport’. 

The training began and before we knew it along came August 26 to which we set off to Horton in Ribblesdale. We tackled Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough (24 miles in total) in under 12 hours (which we finished in a fantastic 9.5!). 

Throughout the help of our friends, family and amazing customers, we were able to raise just over £2,000. Although a drop in the ocean, we were extremely humbled to have helped out such amazing causes. Bring on the 2022 challenges!

Continuing on with further charitable challenges, our Marketing Director ‘Tobias Rawcliffe’ took on the biggest challenge of them all in aid of Motor Neurone Disease, running 2,021 miles throughout 2021. It seemed ambitious, however if that doesn’t sum him up then no word does! It’s safe to say that Tobias totally crushed it. With the Madrid Marathon, Manchester Marathon, lots and lots of half marathons around Leeds and much much more (not to say that whilst we all walked the Three Peaks and struggled, he ran it!). 

The end result was astonishing, a terrific effort and capability with 2,021 miles under his belt and £5,000 to MNDA (The Motor Neurone Disease Association), we couldn’t have been prouder of him, and we will see what more crazy ideas he has throughout the year of 2022!

Environment

As a business, we all agreed that our efforts towards the environment could improve. We started by making the switch from traditional bubble bags to bespoke cardboard boxes to package our customers’ orders of number plates in. We thought we could aim to reduce our carbon footprint and to encourage our customers to recycle after having received their order. 

On making the switch, our Managing Director ‘Aldan Ibbetson’ said; “We regularly approach our customers for feedback about their experience with us and one of the areas identified in which we could improve was in relation to our packaging, in terms of how it looked, how it holds up to the delivery process and most importantly, its impact on the environment. Having considered a few different options, we decided that the bespoke cardboard boxes were the way forward. We are delighted with their recyclable nature and hope our customers will use this to its full potential. We are excited for the coming years to adapt and change our ways to move towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly working ways. 

We are looking into a Cycle To Work scheme which would work fantastically for our local team, along with solar energy and much much more.”

Growth

2021 saw many ups and downs for us all. With CoronaVirus at its peak it seemed that nothing good could’ve come from the year. Fortunately, we were exceptionally lucky to have some good outcomes, which we can’t say for everyone – 2021 was challenging at the least. 

We were able to push forward with many new ranges (which are all available on the website here), including 4D Gels, 5D and our Matte range. All of which are customisable and available for all plates whatever they are. Our design team took to the styles, choosing both style and legality, to ensure that number plates would look like an accessory (of course whilst still keeping to the DVLA Laws).

Our biggest push so far has been our launch of Private Registrations. We have created a separate platform on our website whereby customers can browse through over 500,000 registrations to find their perfect one. With personalised search results, filtering systems and low prices we are able to provide our customers with the world of private registrations. We offer multiple finance options with our partners Klarna and Funding Falcon, giving people easy options of how they can purchase their dream reg! 

Our Private Plate customer service are on hand all the time, to take you through the process, answer all of your questions and most importantly help you find the perfect plate.

---

As you can see, 2021 has been a pretty hectic year for us here at Number1Plates, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ve got big plans for 2022 and can’t wait to see what the future holds for us, our customers and everybody else.

Wishing a very happy and prosperous 2022 to you all!