Modular building specialist completes £3m investment with move to self-built offices

Modular building firm Integra Buildings has moved into flagship self-built offices manufactured just yards away in its own factory units.

The company, which designs and manufactures off-site modular buildings, is now operating from the two-storey office building on an expanded site at Paull, East Yorkshire.

All of Integra’s operations are consolidated at the site east of Hull as part of a £3m investment programme, including building the showpiece offices.

The new 8,300 sq ft office building comprises high ceilings, a concrete first-floor base and no central supports, enabling the open plan layout.

The interior fit-out has been designed by Hull-based Chameleon Business Interiors.

The ground floor features a business lounge, training areas and meeting rooms, all of which are also available to Integra’s customers and suppliers. Integra’s staff are based on the open plan first floor.

The company marked the completion of its investment strategy with a VIP event and official opening of the offices, performed by Sir Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, and attended by Integra’s partners, customers and suppliers.

Gary Parker, managing director of Integra, said: “This year is the 21st of the business and it’s really fitting we’ve moved into our new offices, as part of our consolidation on this site, because it marks our coming of age. It’s a hugely important milestone for the business.

“As well as this new office building, we’ve created bespoke manufacturing facilities that have doubled our production capacity. We’re in a growing industry, an industry of the present and the future, and we now feel we have facilities which reflect that.

“We’re certainly putting ourselves on the map and taking the business to the next level.”

Integra manufactures modular buildings for permanent installation across a wide range of sectors, including sport, leisure, education, healthcare and commercial operations, as well as highly-durable, anti-vandal modular buildings used predominantly for office and welfare facilities on construction sites.

The company has relocated its office functions and some manufacturing facilities from a site it has now vacated at nearby Burstwick.

Installation of KCOM’s Lightstream ultrafast broadband also means Integra can download and transfer huge design files in seconds and video conferencing is used, whenever possible, to save on the time, cost and environmental impact of travelling to client meetings.

Mr Parker added: “Our new home has given our staff a massive boost and it’s been great for recruitment. It makes such a difference when you can invite candidates to job interviews in offices like this. It gives us a real competitive advantage.

“We also now have the room and the facilities to expand and enhance our training programmes and take on our first apprentices for several years. We’ve already recruited seven local young people as apprentices – five joiners, a welder and a design technician.”

The new facilities will support further growth for the company, which is on target to deliver record turnover of £24m in 2018, up by more than £5m in just two years.

Integra’s investment programme has created almost 20 new jobs, taking the total workforce into three figures. Integra also supports the employment of many more local people, with 90% of its supply chain within a 30-mile radius.

The developments on the Paull site have been supported by a grant of almost £200,000 from the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership’s Growing the Humber programme, facilitated by East Riding of Yorkshire Council.