NORTH EAST building contractor Gus Robinson Developments has celebrated starting work on three new schemes with a combined value of over £9m.
The business, that has employed 11 new members of staff over the last year, is working towards a financial target of £20m turnover by September this year.
Since January, the company has started works on two projects with Karbon Homes, at the former St Mary’s School in South Shields and at the former Newbottle Community Centre near Houghton-le-Spring, which will see 54 new homes being completed throughout 2017.
Works have also commenced on the firm’s first collaboration with Bernicia Homes with 11 new bungalows and houses under construction in Fawdon, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Bernicia Homes is working with Newcastle City Council and The Homes and Communities Agency to deliver 11 much needed affordable homes in a popular area of the City.
In June, works will commence in Shiney Row, transforming a disused brownfield site into 24 new affordable homes, further strengthening the relationship between Gus Robinson Developments’ and Karbon Homes.
These new developments are part of Gus Robinson Developments’ growing pipeline of work and business plan, which is set to exceed £20m in each of the next two financial years.
New team in place
Gus Robinson Developments Managing Director Steve Bell said: “We’ve grown over the last three years and what we are seeing now is the culmination of a lot of hard work from everyone within the company.
“To deliver these projects onto site we’ve needed to add to our team in order to keep pace with the growing volume of work across a much broader geographical area to that which we have operated in over the last few years.
“The new additions to the Gus Robinson team compliments the existing members of staff and give us a great balance of skills and experience to move forward with.
“It’s important to have a mixture of experience and new blood to strengthen the team.
“We have brought in some very experienced people over the last 12 months including Andrew Cullum who is a Senior Quantity Surveyor, Chris Wardell into the role of Design Co-ordinator and Claude Farron as a Senior Site Manager.
“With an eye on the future we have also recruited Rebecca Hodge as a trainee Quantity Surveyor, brought Caitlin Eales into the technical team and Carl Flory has joined the accounts team.”
Steve added: “We’re a family business and the people who work with us are the lifeblood of the company. Skills and experience are really important in the delivery of our projects, but so too are people who fit in with our ethos of being a trusted and reliable contractor partner.
“Gus Robinson Developments has had a long tradition of training and developing its staff. With the current growth of the company, we needed to bring in experienced people but did not want to lose the tradition of developing young people now to lead the business in the future.
“We wanted people who we can train in the Gus Robinson way and used our current workload as a launch pad to bring in new talent to join our already established team.”
In addition to contract wins and new staff, the company has introduced a new look website, detailing all current projects, previous work, news and people.
Steve, concluded: “The website came for a number of reasons, it marked our 40th anniversary, our growth and of course allows us to share our latest news and projects.”
