Housebuilder doubles workforce as activity increases across region
A housebuilder has increased its workforce by 100% in the past 12 months and still has ambitious plans for further growth.
Anwyl Homes Lancashire, based in Chorley, now has 40 employees and is experiencing a busy period of land acquisitions, site starts and show home openings, including the opening of its first show homes in the Preston area at Bluebell Meadows, Fulwood.
John Grime, managing director of Anwyl Homes Lancashire, said: “From a standing start in 2017 when I was the solo employee, we’ve now got a full complement of directors and heads of department and our total headcount is 40. By comparison, at our 2019 financial year end, we employed 19.
“We will continue to recruit new people as our operation grows, especially site staff and sales advisors for new developments as they come onstream. In addition we are creating significant employment for sub-contractors on our sites and for people working in the supply chain.”
The first three Anwyl Homes Lancashire developments to go live were across the county border, in Merseyside, with schemes in St Helens, Prescot and Bowring Park, Liverpool.
However, the regional company is now also active in Fulwood, Longridge and Barton, near Preston, Burscough, in West Lancashire, and also in Winnington, Cheshire.
“Our Lancashire business completed circa 90 homes in the financial year to the end of September. That’s slightly fewer than we had originally planned, due to COVID, but our target for this year is more than double and by 2023 we expect to be delivering more than 400 homes per annum in this region,” said John.
“Importantly, we have already secured the land to deliver the majority of this growth.”
Fully furnished show homes have recently opened at Stonebridge Fold, in Longridge, and construction has begun of 72 new homes at Lawrence Gardens, off Garstang Road, in Barton.
Anwyl is also on site building 267 three- and four-bedroom homes at Priory Gardens, Yew Tree Park, Burscough, and has reserved matters consent for 124 homes at Winnington Place, in Winnington, Cheshire, where demolition works have begun and a construction start will be made in November. The latter is the first phase of a larger 250-property scheme.
Anwyl Homes Lancashire is part of the North Wales-based Anwyl Group, a fourth generation family business which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year and was recently named as a Sunday Times PcW Top Track 250 mid-market private company.
John said: “The Anwyl name may be relatively new in this part of the world, but it is gathering momentum, helped by a 90-year track record in the construction and housebuilding industry.
“Our thoughtful designs and high level of craftsmanship have been well received locally and one of our site managers, Chris Johnston, recently won an NHBC Pride in the Job Quality award for his work at Bluebell Meadows, in Fulwood – it was his first and the first for Anwyl Homes Lancashire.”
