On the Move: The latest West Midlands hires
Birmingham-based land promotion company Richborough Estates has bolstered its in-house technical capabilities with the appointment of Richard Holdcroft as technical coordinator.
Holdcroft supports technical director Dean Knight in ensuring the company’s nationwide portfolio of live sites – which are set to generate thousands of new homes over the next five years – are build-ready for its development partners.
This involves working with a range of consultants to manage each site’s technical and environmental constraints and opportunities, while also meeting the latest construction and environmental legislation.
Working alongside design director Charlotte Lewis, Holdcroft also oversees the creation of site sales and technical packs. The comprehensive handbooks contain details ranging from location and planning background to site access, drainage, ecology and air quality.
He joins from Taylor Wimpey where he was responsible for the technical aspects of a number of sites from land acquisition stage right through to after-sale queries. Previously in his career, in addition to civil engineering posts, he was an avionics technician in the Armed Forces, where he maintained and repaired Lynx and Apache helicopters.
Paul Campbell, chief executive of Richborough Estates, said: “Our technical team plays a crucial role in each site we promote by embedding the right technical solutions and thereby minimising risks for our development partners, maximising land value, smoothing sales and accelerating delivery.
“Richard’s vast experience and knowledge will help us deliver even better value to our customers. He is a great asset to the team.”
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Hoppecke Industrial Batteries has announced the appointment of Stuart Browne as general manager of its UK operation.
Having joined Hoppecke UK in 2015 as service director, Browne was promoted to operations director-sales and service in January last year. This specially created role was a move tied into the company’s decision to forge closer links between its sales and service divisions to enhance customer support.
Browne said: “Over the past couple of years we’ve redefined and improved our offer for the UK marketplace, which has really paid dividends. This is an exciting opportunity and I’m looking forward to working with our dedicated team in Staffordshire to maximise these achievements and drive the business forward.”
The company is continuing to build its credentials in the rail sector with dedicated lithium train batteries developed by Hoppecke group company Intilion. It is also capitalising on investment in motive power products such as trak | powerpack lion, a new modular lithium-ion energy system that makes switching forklift fleets from lead-acid batteries quick and easy.
Browne added: “The decision to integrate our sales and service operations more and put customers at the heart of our business has been a resounding success. IT investment has allowed us to improve standards of service and maximise efficiencies across the board and we’ve put the entire team through skills training. All told, it has enabled us to capitalise on our industry knowledge and engineering expertise to help customers resolve issues to boost productivity.
“Coping with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge, but we’ve been able to maintain production levels in the UK and are encouraged by the growing level of demand we’re now seeing for our services.”
