About us

Company History

1981 ~ Present Day

Tony Veale (A D Veale) founded his successful Company way back in January 1981 and quickly gained a strong reputation locally for his specialist knowledge on the installation of household and commercial water treatment systems. He first started out doing an engineering apprenticeship at one of Suffolk’s largest foundries – Cranes of Ipswich. With this invaluable skillset, Tony joined the Merchant Navy and sailed around the world many times in his capacity as Ships Engineer.

After subsequently settling into married life with a shore based profession utilising those same engineering skills, Tony landed the role of Senior Engineer for the Milk Marketing Board’s production facility at Seaman’s Dairy in Knighsdale Road, Ipswich. When this milk facility in Ipswich was eventually closed due to centralisation, Tony embarked upon setting up his own Plumbing & Water Treatment Company. Along with his wife Sandra, they both ran this busy operation for 41 years, employing many members of staff and servicing tens of thousands of customers.

Upon the occasion of his eightieth Birthday in December 2021 and with two replacement knees reflecting a lifetimes hard work, Tony decided to hang-up his pipe benders and fully retire from his lifelong profession. After 41 years of successful, ethical and trustworthy trading which had witnessed countless other companies within his profession fall by the wayside over those years, Tony & Sandra Veale decided that they would like to relax, travel, enjoy tending there immaculate garden and embrace all of the benefits that they had both worked so disproportionately hard for over the many decades.

The legacy of their efforts very much live on today as ‘Clarity Water Solutions from A D Veale’ under the Directorship of Clive & Suzanne Stevens. Clive joined the business over twenty years ago and by 2005 had been appointed a Company Director. Working alongside Tony & Sandra Veale for numerous years and gaining a wealth of knowledge on how best to run a small business, the Company continues to flourish from its centrally located office on the Norfolk/Suffolk Borders, serving its many thousands of new and existing customers from its historic database, dating back over four decades.

“Which marketing Agency came up with that strap-line?”

Having previously cut his teeth in the Water Softener Industry working for an Independent Dealership in Wiltshire and latterly North American water conditioner giants ‘Culligan International,’ Clive Stevens joined A D Veale Ltd in 2002 with the remit of expanding the business. His broader knowledge of the UK Water Treatment Industry as a whole was a welcome addition to the established team.

…..And this is where our trusty fish enters stage left. People regularly ask us which branding Company came up with the highly successful design and novel strap-line “I don’t have a scale problem – Do you?” Of course its actually a play on the theme of ”limescale.’ Well, truth be told that in 2000, our (now) Company Director was tasked with job of raising the profile of Water Softener awareness in the Swindon and district area when he worked for Culligan, who had recently taken over a water treatment company in Royal Wootton Bassett.

Numerous brain storming ideas were proposed and eventually they adopted his design, upon using a brightly coloured tropical fish, accompanied by the aforementioned strap-line. The ink however was barely dry on the leaflet when head-office announced that they were rolling out all new marketing material across all of the Culligan owned Dealerships and that the fish leaflet did not fit in with their image in any shape or form!

Needless to say, five years later, we resurrected old Gilbert for Clarity Water; gave him a make-over and some shiny new gills and the rest is history! Every Clarity company vehicle now has the fish design on it and we get no end of enquiries into the office from potential customers who can’t always remember our Company name, but ask if we are the Company with the beautiful Goldfish on our vehicles!

In 2012, as Tony Veale gradually started to pull back a bit from the day to day rigours of wearing quite so many business hats, it was agreed by mutual consent that Clive and his wife Suzanne would take over the day to day running of  the Company. At the same time, the business was relocated to the Norfolk/Suffolk border where it was better positioned to serve the whole of the East Anglian region.

Ten years on and with an energetic and enthusiastic team of reliable staff, a change in the marketing name for the Company was made to ‘Clarity Water Solutions.’ It was felt that this new name gave customers (and potential new customers) a far better indication of what the business actually does; rather than just the name of the retired founder.

As a ‘tip of the hat’ to the long-term legacy of the business, founded in 1981 by Tony & Sandra Veale, we have had our vintage Morris Minor works van beautifully restored and painted to reflect this Company linage; harking back to the heyday of the British Motor Industry. We cannot promise that your water softener salt will be delivered in this van (those old British vehicles corroded fairly well without being given any help), but we do attend numerous shows and events with the van during the better weather!

In 2023, our little Company (which we are exceptionally proud of) continues to service its many thousands of satisfied customers across Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex and is noticeably expanding year on year to accommodate the significant numbers of new homes being built across the Region. The core of our business ethos and the key elements to the Company’s success are built upon excellent customer service, reliable, durable & efficent products, competent and friendly staff and conscientious management.

We very much look forward to your enquiry and we will do our level best to treat you as a customer in the same manner with which we would expect to be treated if we were a customer ourselves.