Newbury Business News - Thursday, Sept 4th 2008

CONSTRUCTION FIRM BUCKS GLOOMY TREND

"There can be little doubt that the construction sector is now firmly in recession,” commented Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at Global Insight, after the release of official data from the Construction Managers' Index, which measures trends in the housing, commercial and civil engineering sectors showing activity fell for the fifth consecutive month to the lowest figures since the series began in 1997.  Industry analysts predict that construction will remain in recession until 2010 with a report by the Construction Confederation also claiming construction output will continue to fall both this year and next.

Not so for Thatcham-based, Ashridge who are enjoying yet another record year of growth. Turnover has increased by 34.5% in just the last 12 months and the company has already secured business for 2008 in excess of the total revenue for 2007. Ashridge has also just completed a full rebranding exercise with local agency, Design Eclectic, which sees a ‘new look’ Ashridge including a new website launched.

Managing Director, Peter Jones attributes this to a number of key factors, “Through our well-established management team we have built a solid reputation for consistently delivering our contracts on-time, to agreed specifications and to budget because we understand that our success depends upon the quality of our work. Not only that but with a direct labour workforce and extensive in-house stock of machinery we can offer the added benefit of rapid mobilisation and commencement of works.”

He continues, “This year has seen increasing success through this philosophy, leading to a high percentage of repeat order business. In addition, Ashridge has quickly reacted to changing government priorities by diversifying into new markets.”

Formed over 25 years ago, Ashridge has become a leading multi-disciplined Civil Engineering and Construction Contractor. In the last 10 years, Ashridge has completed over 150 capital schemes for Local Authorities and over 30 major schemes for Central Government including roads, park & ride schemes, car parks, bridgeworks and town centre environmental enhancement schemes.

More recently with the decline in expenditure for government infrastructure works Ashridge has shifted focus to work with principal contractors involved in the program for ‘building schools for the future’, major MOD redevelopments and hospital building programs.

Currently Ashridge is working on the construction of new car parks at Vodafone HQ as well as extensive highway safety improvements around Aldermaston and Tadley. Further afield, Ashridge is building environmentally-friendly fermentation bunkers at Bawtry in Yorkshire for Tunnel Tech North Ltd.

Peter Jones concludes, “In very difficult markets and times of serious economic pressure, our record figures and investment in relationship marketing are further proof of our commitment to continued growth as well as underlining the intrinsic qualities of the business. The reinforced concrete composting tunnels at Bawtry are a perfect example of our business philosophy. As local authority highways budgets have been cut we have taken our experience and expertise and applied it to a new sector with great success.”