Lindum’s pledge to employ local

The company, which already has offices in Lincoln, Peterborough, Grimsby and London, said the York office will help it to serve its existing customers and win new business in the Yorkshire region.

Neil Coote, business manager for Lindum in York, told the Yorkshire Post he expects the office in York to turn over around £10m in its first year.

The business has a turnover of around £90m in total and employs around 460 construction craftsmen, technical and managerial staff across the group, the majority of whom are shareholders in the company.

Mr Coote said: “We anticipate that we will employ over 100 construction staff over the next couple of years as we establish a permanent presence in York. We will give priority to any of our existing staff who want to relocate to York for career progression. But in truth we are certainly looking to recruit local tradesmen, local craftsmen and local technical staff.”

Lindum specialises in the affordable housing, medical, food and education sector for projects up to £20m, along with maintenance and refurbishment work.

It recently completed its 33rd medical centre, which is based in Harrogate, for £4.7m and a new large food factory for its client Greggs in Penrith. The company is about to start a new project for Newly Weds Foods in Ossett.

The business is currently leasing its office in York city centre, but expects to outgrow the office in the next two or three years. It plans to construct a purpose-built office.

Currently, there are two members of staff in the York office, but Mr Coote said the headcount will rapidly expand with eight to 12 people joining the office in the next two to three months.

“This is an employee owned and operated company whereby all the Lindum group employees, with one or two exceptions who have been with us less than two years, are shareholders,” explained Mr Coote.

“Our philosophy is if you see a screw on the floor you pick it up so it doesn’t puncture one of our tipper lorries and therefore it’s less profit at the end of the year.

“Whether your chairman, director, cleaner or lorry driver, we are all equally important, there’s no-one more important than anyone else.

“That’s why we recognise that any profits we do make at the end of the year, 10 per cent of those profits, that we’re not ploughing back into the company, are distributed evenly across all staff.”

Mr Coote said the order book for the company is good. “We are in the fourth year of our recession and in construction we get hit first, hardest and longest, but we have been fortunate, and with respect, we are a humble family building contractor but we work hard, we play hard, we have a lot of laughs and we’ve managed to keep everybody fully employed. We have got a good forward workload across all our 17 divisions, so we are busy on all fronts at the moment.”

He added: “It’s always difficult to find work but we’ve got a lot of repeat business and we try and do a good job.” Mr Coote said that 72 per cent of the group’s £90m turnover is repeat business with regular clients.

He also added that Lindum’s relationship with its supply chain network is very important.

Turnover has been between £80m to £90m over the last four years of recession, said Mr Coote. He said the business is profitable, adding: “We are a very competitive contractor so margins are pretty low in the recession, but we do year-on-year make enough profit to keep us afloat and pay back our staff.”

Lindum is due to hold an official opening for its new York office today.

York MP Hugh Bayley and Lindum chairman David Chambers will unveil a commemorative plaque, followed by an address by the mayor of York, Coun Keith Hyman.

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