Respected Approved Inspector, Ball & Berry, has achieved triple digit growth in the last six months following a surge in investment from homeowners wanting to improve their properties.
Having furloughed members of its team at the start of the UK-wide lockdown in spring, the building control expert is now operating at full capacity and has additional plans to expand its team further, following the opening of its fourth office, in London, four months ago.
A range of Government incentives which enabled the construction industry to continue operations, combined with consumers unlocking additional capital through restrictions on travel and socialising, has led to the increase in enquiries for Ball & Berry’s expertise, which has seen it accept more than 250 new instructions each month since July.
Ball & Berry’s success is projected to see it outperform like-for-like revenues when compared with the same period last year. This, it says, will enable it to continue hiring the most exceptional talent in the building control sector, following four high profile appointments in as many months.
Darren Davies, Graham Hoare and Stuart Martin joined the company’s London office as associate director, senior building control surveyor and regional director respectively, while Nick Stephens joined the Manchester office as senior building control surveyor in August.
Paul McNeill, director for Ball & Berry, said: “Like so many other businesses in the sector, the start of the lockdown brought so much uncertainty about what could and couldn’t safely take place in order to keep construction an active industry. We had to make difficult decisions, but we did so with the hope that the market would return to its previous levels of buoyancy, if not stronger, which would enable us to achieve some element of growth.
“What few people anticipated was the huge swathe of investment homeowners would make into renovating, altering and extending their properties. Following weeks sat indoors, many considered two options – either move to a new house completely or put the money saved from a sudden lack of commuting, eating and drinking out and taking holidays abroad back into their house to improve their living conditions.
“The result is that we’ve had the busiest few months in our history. Building control services and Approved Inspectors are a vital part of any major domestic renovation whether that’s a side or rear extension, garage or attic conversion or even a mass internal reconfiguration. And with a huge proportion of our work coming in through word of mouth and recommendations, we’ve seen demand for our expertise surge.
“Even though Covid-19 has taught us that anything can change overnight, we’ve also learnt how to adapt quickly. We’ve found new ways of working using technological and video platforms which have enabled us to pass on efficiencies to clients in both our domestic and commercial developments, which has been very well received. Additionally, we’ve been able to continue training our team of experts and others in our supply chain using online CPDs.
“Though we hoped we would emerge from the pandemic in a financially viable position, no-one anticipated we would actually have been able to grow our operations. As work continues to come in, we will be on the lookout for the industry’s best talent to join our team so we can carry on delivering the leading levels of service we’re so proud to offer our customers.”
