Harmony Fire and Ventro Group are two of the fastest-growing fire safety companies in Europe. Both were founded by members of the Melvin family, Plymouth Brethren Christian Church members whose business interests span fire doors, cladding systems, passive fire protection and social housing compliance work across the UK. Behind the growth story sits a complex web of family connections, shared religious identity, a vertically integrated supply chain and a shareholder link that reaches all the way to the Hales family, the hereditary leadership of the PBCC.
A £61 Million Contract: Only Two Real Options
Earlier in 2025, Harmony Fire was awarded a £61 million, three-year contract by Edinburgh City Council via the Prosper Passive Fire Safety Framework. While the award was publicly announced only recently, the contract was actually granted in January 2025. The Prosper framework allows local authorities to procure specialist fire safety services without running a full open tender, drawing instead from a pre-vetted pool of approved suppliers.
Our investigation into the tender process found that once non-specialist firms were discounted, just two companies met the criteria for inclusion: Harmony Fire and Ventro Group. Both companies are owned and operated by members of the Melvin family, Plymouth Brethren members from Croydon with operations now spread across Plymouth, Yeovil and beyond. In practice, Edinburgh City Council's procurement framework offered the appearance of competition whilst the eligible pool was entirely controlled by one extended family.
"Once non-specialist firms were discounted, just two companies were eligible. Both were run by the same extended family."
Brethren Exposed Investigation — October 2025Charles Hales, the son of PBCC worldwide leader Bruce Hales and co-owner of the controversial Covid PPE company Unispace, is a major shareholder in Harmony Fire. His involvement connects the company directly to the most senior tier of Brethren leadership and raises questions about whether procurement frameworks designed to ensure efficiency are adequately guarded against concentrated ownership.
The Melvin Dynasty
The Melvin family originates from Croydon and has spread across the UK, primarily to Plymouth and Yeovil. Four brothers sit at the centre of a cluster of companies operating in the fire safety sector.
The Melvin Family — Key Connections
A Brethren Supply Chain
What makes the Harmony Fire and Ventro story particularly notable is the density of PBCC-connected businesses throughout their supply chain. Door hardware manufacturers Datim, Dorplan and Rutland Trading Co are owned by Brethren families and supply components integral to fire door compliance work. Specialist doorset suppliers Solidcor, Metador and Strongdor occupy the same PBCC network. In many cases, the explosive revenue growth of these supplier companies mirrors that of the Melvin firms, raising questions about vertical integration, procurement transparency and whether religious affinity is a factor in supplier selection.
The practical effect is that a local authority contracting with Harmony Fire or Ventro may inadvertently be directing public funds through multiple tiers of Brethren-owned businesses, with limited visibility of the full supply chain or awareness of the shared ownership and community ties running through it.
Charitable Optics and the Rapid Relief Team
Harmony Fire's partnership with the Rapid Relief Team, the PBCC's charitable arm, features prominently in its ESG and social value materials. The company promotes its community contributions including food box donations and charity events, some of which closely align with the social value clauses written into its council contracts.
"Who funds the food boxes — the RRT or Harmony Fire? When two entities are this closely aligned, the appearance of separate generosity deserves scrutiny."
Brethren ExposedThe question of where Harmony Fire's contribution ends and the RRT's begins matters for public procurement. Council contract social value scoring is intended to measure genuine community benefit delivered by the contractor. If the PBCC's own charitable arm is delivering that community benefit on behalf of a PBCC-connected company, it may present the councils with an inflated picture of Harmony Fire's standalone social contribution.
Experience vs Opportunity
Concerns have been raised within the fire safety sector about the relative inexperience of Harmony Fire's founders when the company was established. Some of those concerns are reflected in Glassdoor reviews by former employees. Yet the company has continued to win public sector work at scale, secured by procurement frameworks that pre-qualify suppliers on criteria that do not always require extensive prior track records.
The post-Grenfell regulatory environment has significantly expanded the market for passive fire safety compliance work. The question raised by this investigation is whether that expansion has been adequately governed, or whether it has created conditions in which companies with strong community networks and social value optics can grow faster than their expertise alone would justify.
Cladding, Valcan and Family Links
A further connection links the Melvin network to Valcan Ltd, a firm that supplied potentially unsafe cladding (not the cladding used at Grenfell Tower) before being subject to media scrutiny and subsequently being liquidated. Carlton Shaw of Valcan is the brother-in-law of Harvey Melvin, co-director of Ventro Group. Ventro has stated that it had no involvement in Valcan's activities, and no suggestion of wrongdoing on Ventro's part arises from this connection. It is noted here as part of a complete picture of the extended network.
Conclusion
Harmony Fire and Ventro are now two of the fastest-growing companies in Europe in their sector. Their growth has been underpinned by family ties, a shared PBCC community, an integrated supply chain of Brethren-owned businesses, and a post-Grenfell regulatory environment that created substantial demand for fire safety compliance work. Charles Hales's shareholding in Harmony Fire connects this story directly to the Hales family's wider commercial interests, which span PPE procurement, testing and now fire safety.
Whether this is a story of entrepreneurial success built on genuine expertise, or a story of disaster capitalism in which a religious community has positioned itself to profit from public safety failures and regulatory responses to them, is a question that procurement officers, local authorities and regulators are yet to seriously confront.