30% turnover increase at architects practice
Watson Batty Architects has surpassed trading expectations for its financial year ending April 2021, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
The Leeds and Loughborough-based practice has achieved a 30% increase on turnover from April 2020 at £2.98m, 8% ahead of its targets.
Revenues have been boosted by work across the extra care, learning and residential development sectors.
Recent project gains include new educational facilities with Galliford Try for Leeds Local Education Partnership, extra care and residential work with Wates Construction through the Scape Framework, mixed tenure housing projects with Vistry Partnerships and a new secondary school for Elliott Group through the DfE MMC Schools framework.
The practice expanded with five new people in 2020 and has since recruited a further three professionals to its senior team.
Gary Kempston has joined as senior architect, bringing over 17 years’ experience with other leading practices and a tier one contractor Neil Murray has also joined as project architect alongside senior architectural technologist Andrew Hinchliffe.
Peter White, managing director, said: “We are delighted to report strong trading for the last financial year and this can only be attributed to the professionalism and great resolve of our team.
“The last 15 months during the pandemic have presented considerable challenges to us all, from remote working, shifting priorities in design and of course commitment to the delivery of major projects.
“We have supported our clients through these challenging times with great flexibility and continue to invest in our capability through new technologies and processes, modern methods of construction and meeting the RIBA 2030 climate challenge.
“We are optimistic for the future and will continue to pursue our strengths in living, extra care, learning and logistics development where delivery remains critical.”
Further recent instructions for Watson Batty include affordable housing for Caddick Construction, projects for Loughborough, Leeds and Sheffield Universities and a new care home in Walsall for Exemplar Healthcare.
