PROFILE: HIGHWOOD GROUP
Stronger than ever
Despite recent challenges, Highwood Group has continued to develop award-winning projects, and moving forward, the Hampshire-based business is set to maintain the exemplary company culture and distinctive quality with which its name has become synonymous
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ot new to the construction industry and certainly not new to the pages of Construction and Civil Engineering, the 34-year-old care and residential contractor, Highwood Group, has been keeping busy since it last featured in the magazine, partly as a result of the pandemic that has shaken the globe for 18 months or so. Recently, a particularly exciting opportunity brought the business a new Construction Director, Andy Stevenson, who takes the time to share with us the developments that have taken place at Highwood since we last spoke with the company in February 2020.
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Construction Director, Andy Stevenson
Andy’s skillset and experience complement the Highwood business model, and despite the unstable circumstances that welcomed him when he joined the business mid-2021, he is proud of the ways in which Highwood has manoeuvred through economic obstacles, while upholding the safety of its employees and the longevity of its business. “The pandemic has tested us all,” he begins. “We dipped slightly during 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19, which brought a number of site constructions to a halt, and unfortunately, some of our newer projects were placed on hold. Some of our sites closed completely, and then reopened with restrictions
that were challenging to our workforce, especially our on-site teams. On the other hand, some of our staff who were forced to work from home continued to maintain business as usual. However, regardless of these difficulties, we were determined to help people who were already in the final stages of buying a Highwood home to complete their move with the lowest amount of stress possible, and, above that, support our communities as best as we could,” he shares. One of the ways in which Highwood did this was through the donation of food vouchers and toys to local food banks, as well as through the provision of computer equipment to a local primary