Launch of £1m academy for hairdressing

AN award-winning hairdressing group is creating a centre of excellence for hairdressing apprentices in the North of England by opening an academy in Leeds.
Marc Westreman and Steve RowbottomMarc Westreman and Steve Rowbottom
Marc Westreman and Steve Rowbottom

Westrow, which runs seven salons across Yorkshire, will launch the £1m Westrow House in a month’s time.

The 5000 sq ft building on Briggate will house state-of-the-art training facilities and offer NVQ Levels 1, 2 and 3 alongside bespoke creative and business courses.

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Directors and long-term friends Marc Westerman and Steve Rowbottom are also planning to open an eighth salon in North Leeds in mid-November, taking turnover to more than £4m.

Next year they will undertake an ambitious expansion when they open up their business to external franchisees in Yorkshire and beyond.

Mr Rowbottom said: “We try to conduct ourselves in a professional manner and the business has grown on the back of that. Everyone works within the brand’s guidelines. People say that everything is about perception but we believe that quality is more important.”

Since Mr Westerman and Mr Rowbottom opened their first hairdressers in Leeds in 1987, the company has grown and grown. Today, Westrow employs about 150 staff at any one time and has scooped a large number of industry awards.

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This month, Westrow was shortlisted in the Business Thinker category at Creative HEAD’s 2013 awards. It has since been nominated in three categories at the 2013 Your Hair awards. Last year, the firm won Business Director of The Year at the British Hairdressing Business Awards.

Opening a training academy is a big step for Westrow. They anticipate taking on an initial 240 students and hope that the centre will attract hairdressers from salons across the North of England.

Mr Rowbottom said: “Salons won’t have to pay anything for it because we have government funding. The government money has come through the modern apprenticeship programme. The government is investing in workplace learning rather than in colleges. It is a ten-year contract.”

He added: “We’ve been in the business for more than 25 years and we’ve always trained our own kids. Now we have opened that up to other salons.”

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Westrow Academy is set in an impressive building. A former coaching inn built in 1692, it was known as the New King’s Arms and had stables for 18 horses. It was renamed The Royal Hotel in 1834 and was converted into flats in the late 1970s. It then lay derelict.

“We envisage education will be one of the major growths for Westrow and opening our academy means we will be able to deliver NVQ diplomas in hairdressing in an amazing environment,” said Mr Rowbottom.

He added: “Hairdressing is our passion and the highest standards of training and education are very important and form the core values of our brand. We would like to share these same core values with the hairdressing industry at large. Our aim in the future is then to roll out satellite academies, to deliver the same services in other parts of the country as we expand our salon base.”

Until now, Westrow has kept its franchisee business in-house or, as Westrow describes it, “franchisees have each been home-grown”. From 2013, it will open up its business to partnership franchisee operations.

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Mr Rowbottom said: “We want to expand beyond Yorkshire. We have to keep the business sustainable but to grow at speed we have to grow externally. We now know that the brand is ready to expand.”

With a view to opening ten more salons over the next five years, Westrow as it is today is a far cry from the sole shop above a menswear shop on Queen Victoria Street.

Mr Rowbottom reflected on the past quarter of a century: “I wanted to be a professional footballer and I did play football for a long time. But that didn’t work out. I stumbled across hairdressing...and I never wanted to have my own salon. But it became a natural thing to do.”

Aiming to be a cut above

1987 – Westrow opens its first salon in Queen Victoria Street

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1990 – Westrow opens a Molton Brown cosmetics franchise – the first of its kind outside of London

1994 – Westrow opens its second salon in the Victoria Quarter in Leeds

1996 – Westrow’s 18 Thornton’s Arcade salon opens

1999 – Westrow Harrogate salon opens

2000 – 4-6 Thornton’s Arcade opens.

2002 – The first Westrow franchise salon opens in Ilkley

2003 – The Westrow York salon opens

2006 – The third Westrow franchise opens in West Park

2012 – Westrow celebrates 25 years in business