Retail and commercial office fit-outs help boost Barnwood’s

Turnover

Gloucester-based construction and specialist interior fit-out firm

Barnwood Group has achieved a turnover of £104 million – up from £84.6 million

Now employing nearly 250 staff, the company is increasingly known for its fit-out and interiors work as well as construction of some of the county’s biggest, high profile building projects. Retail is an increasingly tough market but through a combination of excellent working relationships with long-standing clients such as Nationwide Building Society and H&M as well as an increased amount of fit-out projects, Barnwood continued to grow.

Simon Carey, Group Managing Director of Barnwood, said: “You can attribute the rise in turnover to organic growth and the timing of a number of major projects that fell in the financial year ending December 2018.”

“These projects included the Schrödinger Building at Oxford Science Park,

Honeybourne Place, Cheltenham, the new Gloucestershire College Campus in the Forest of Dean and Bakers Quay in Gloucester Docks, however a 30 per cent increase in retail and commercial interiors projects also played a major part.”

Its office fit-out success is built in no small part on the expertise within the company. It has highly-skilled designers and delivers work on time to some very challenging timescales for a variety of customer contracts, said Mr Carey.

Starbucks, Fat Face and JD Sports. The Barnwood team have the necessary security clearance and expertise required by the airport authorities.

Barnwood’s work with Jigsaw to fit out its Grade II Listed Carriage Hall in Covent Garden helped win the Drapers Award for the luxury women’s brand. It has also worked with customers as diverse as Cotswold FTSE-firm St James’s Place and Peppa Pig World at Paultons Park.

Locally Barnwood have made an impression on Cheltenham’s retail scene with the recent fitting out of Anthropologie on The Promenade and for Cotswold café and bakery chain Huffkins, which now has a place in John Lewis on the High Street.

Airport fit-outs (Heathrow and Gatwick) have also become something of a speciality with clients such as WH Smith,

Barnwood has also been involved in several of the country’s most successful companies including G-TECH, whose Worcester offices were refurbished. Retail and office fit-out is continuing to help drive the business forward, now accounting for an estimated third of its income. Training continues to be at the heart of the business, with the firm continuing its annual intake of apprentices and trainee professional staff.

For information call: 01452 614124 enquiries@barnwood.co.uk www.barnwood.co.uk

Commercial Property

Leasing Deals

Namco Tooling takes lease on modern premises at Victoria Works

A specialist engineering firm which supplies companies around the world, is set for fresh growth after leasing a new base in Studley, Warwickshire.

Namco Tooling has been making specialist threading equipment for three decades and needed to move from ageing premises at Marlborough Works in Studley.

Director Graham Cooke said: “We needed somewhere more suitable as we invest in more computerised manufacturing and tooling equipment.

“John Truslove did an excellent job finding us new premises. They are smaller but much more suitable to our needs.”

The company and its 20-strong team have moved into an 11,749 sq ft unit at Victoria Works on the Birmingham Road.

Graham Cooke said: “We export around 60 to 70 per cent of everything we make, including to engineering firms in America and Turkey. We do well when engineering is doing well, and things are pretty busy at the moment.”

Ben Truslove, Joint Managing Director of John Truslove, helped secure a five-year lease on the Victoria Works unit for Namco Tooling and also sold Namco’s previous Marlborough Works site to Frontier Estates, which has since secured planning permission to redevelop the site into a care home.

Bromwich Hardy Helps

“There is a real shortage of suitable units coming on to the market and when they do they are snapped up quickly”

Aeristech Secure New Home Close To M40

Commercial property specialist Bromwich Hardy has helped a high-tech automotive company find a new base.

Kenilworth-based advanced technology developer Aeristech has moved into a refurbished unit at Hermes Close in Tachbrook Park, Warwick, within easy access to Junction 14 of the M40

The company, which specialises in electric air compressors for the international automotive industry, has signed a lease on an 11,000 sq ft, two-storey production unit at Hermes Court.

Cosnett, who was acting for Birmingham property company Mercia Real Estate, said the deal was evidence of the region’s importance to the automotive industry.

“The area around Warwick and Leamington Spa is proving particularly attractive to this industry.

“There is a real shortage of suitable units coming on to the market and when they do they are snapped up quickly.”

The 132-acre mixed-use Tachbrook Park is two miles south of Leamington Spa town centre.

Bromwich Hardy marketed the unit with joint agents Wareing and Company.

Power Integrations takes up office space near Maidenhead

Sorbon Estates has secured a letting for office premises at its Grove Park site at Beechwood, White Waltham, Maidenhead to Power Integrations.

Sorbon, the commercial arm of Buckinghamshire-based Shanly Group, has agreed a five-year lease with the US- based electronics company on the 3,307 sq ft office suite.

Power Integrations is an innovator in the clean-power sector, developing semiconductor technologies for high-voltage power conservation.

With headquarters in California, the business is a successful technology company with offices around the world.

The Maidenhead site, close to the M4 and M40, will be the firm’s second UK office –the other is in Cambridge.

Alessandro Squeri, Power Integrations Director of Sales Europe, India and South East Asia, said: “To support our expansion we need excellent teams in the right locations. The Grove Park offices in Maidenhead are well-suited, thanks to their close proximity to the transport network and high quality space.”