Meet the construction boss who went from sleeping in his van to building projects for the Royals

In less than five years he was building £50m houses in the south of England, winning awards for his stone work, setting up a limited company and gaining the attention of King Charles III, when he was Prince of Wales.

In 2016, Henley won the contract to build the Royal Pavilion at Poundbury, a luxurious collection of 20 apartments, which is part of an urban extension on the western outskirts of Dorchester in Dorset, led by the Duchy of Cornwall.

Prince Charles’s visit to the site was a particular highlight for him. “He told me he was excited to meet me because he’d wanted to meet me for a while,” Henley recalls. “He sat with the lads and he was a really nice person and I was very honoured to work for him.”

A contract for HSBC UK’s new headquarters in Birmingham followed – the largest glassfibre reinforced concrete project in the UK at the time.

The group also consulted for projects in Dubai but when Covid-19 it switched its focus back to the UK.

More recently, Henley Group has completed Burberry’s flagship store on New Bond Street in London as well as projects in Manchester and Liverpool.

The Wakefield-based group, which is made up of four specialist companies - Henley Stone Specialists, Henley Remedials and Restoration, Henley Rail and Henley Granite, Quartz and Marble - recorded a turnover of £8m last year, which is expected to rise to £12m or £13m in its next accounts. The group’s target for 2025 is £35m.

"It’s mindblowing sometimes to see where we’ve come from but I’ve seen the nights in the van and the 17-hour days,” says Henley.

"We’d sleep in the van when we were working away because we couldn’t afford accommodation as all the money went into the business.

"I’d buy a multipack of crisps on a Monday and eat crisp sandwiches every day. Friday was always a bad day because there was only salt and vinegar left.”

Meanwhile, his wife, Zoe, would do all the invoicing for the business on top of her full-time NHS job.

"We disappeared for five years because everything we had was going into the business,” he says. “But I’m proud of those days.”

He adds: “There were times when it was that hard I didn’t think I could cope any longer with not getting paid. But it gradually got to the point where a bit more money was coming through and I could employ more people. It’s been an eventful journey, but worth it.”

Four months ago, Henley Group moved into new 6,000 sq ft headquarters at Cedar Court Office Park as part of its strategic growth plan.

It plans to add another division and it was recently accredited to work on railway projects, including the restoration of stations, bridges, bankings and platforms.

Although the construction market has been hit by inflation, higher energy costs and political uncertainty over the last couple of years, Henley insists the areas in which he operates remain buoyant.

“We’re a specialist, we don’t do normal run-of-the-mill construction so we don’t have as many competitors,” he says. “The housing sector’s slowed down, although there’s still a lot going on in the commercial sector.”