Profile - Paul Moore: Star striker reduced him to rubble but MD has built quite a reputation

Paul Moore is taking construction firm Southdale into a different league. Deputy Business Editor Greg Wright meets the man with ambitious expansion plans.

AS John Aldridge fired home his hat-trick, Paul Moore must have reflected that a defender's lot is not always a happy one.

Called up to play for Halifax Town reserves against Tranmere reserves at short notice, Mr Moore was given the thankless job of marking Aldridge, the former Liverpool and Republic of Ireland striker. He spent a lot of the game chasing Aldridge's shadow. Almost two decades later, he's happy to admit that Aldridge was a class apart.

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At the time, Mr Moore was a trainee buyer at construction firm JJ Fee in Halifax, with dreams of bigger things.

He recalled: "When I joined Fees, the managing director, Jim Brown, was also the chairman of Halifax Town.

"We had an agreement where I was able to go training a couple of days a week and play for the intermediate and reserve side. Playing against John Aldridge was the most memorable moment of my football career. He wasn't an easy man to mark, because he was still pretty much at the height of his career."

With his footballing days behind him, Mr Moore has been given the colossal task of turning Halifax-based construction firm Southdale into a 125m turnover company within the next four years.

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It's already reeling in around 66m each year, and Mr Moore, who became group managing director following a recent management buy-in, believes it has the potential to grow rapidly by spreading its operations across Britain, and moving into new sectors. Southdale is probably best known for its social housing work, which includes a number of high-profile schemes in Yorkshire.

This is not an ideal time to build a property empire. Consumer confidence is still fragile.

Just whispering the words "social housing" can send many investors into a blind panic.

Remember Connaught, the social housing group which collapsed in September? The company blamed Government spending cuts for deferrals of contract work, which helped to push it into the abyss.

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In November, around 1,800 people lost their jobs when construction firm Rok collapsed.

According to Mr Moore, Connaught's demise wasn't entirely unexpected.

He added: "If you'd seen the share price three months prior to that there were a lot of telltale (signs). The Rok announcement was more of a shock. It really came out of the blue."

Mr Moore's plans are ambitious, but he's pursuing them in a measured way. After stints at JJ Fee and GB Construction Services, which gave him the chance to pick up the nuts and bolts of his trade, he joined Southdale in 1994. He has risen steadily through the ranks, as Southdale grew in a prudent fashion.

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He said: "When I first joined the business there was four of us, working out of a one-up, one-down terrace house in Halifax, turning over just less than 1m a year. Since then, we've seen growth in every year but one."

These are hard times for anybody involved in construction, and the looming public spending cuts won't make life any easier.

Mr Moore said: "The general market is very unstable. It's very competitive. Since the Comprehensive Spending Review back in November, we've seen a flurry of activity.

"Our view is that it is probably going to last for six months and then we're going to have a 12- month lull. Our strategy is to fill our order book over the next four or five months which will give us a medium-term pipeline.

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"Four or five years ago we were shaped very differently. Half of our business was in private spec housing. In 2008, when the housing market crashed, we decided to mothball the private spec housing and concentrate solely on the contracting side.

"We decided that we didn't want all our eggs in one basket, in terms of just being in the affordable housing sector."

Southdale has diversified by working on care centres, medical centres and other public buildings.

Mr Moore said: "Although we have over 20 years experience in building social housing, we feel that our trusted reputation and technical expertise makes us well-placed to deliver ambitious schemes which benefit the whole community."

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But how can we increase the number of affordable houses in Britain during hard economic times?

"Planning is a huge factor,'' said Mr Moore. "The planning system we had didn't allow us, even in a very buoyant market, to build the output of units that we needed to hit the targets. Given the fact that there are public spending cuts in the affordable housing sector, that's going to make things doubly difficult. People need to think more innovatively about how they deliver and fund these things.

"As a board we are very young and dynamic, with an average age of around 40. This recent recession has hampered things. But we're bucking the trend and are very motivated as a team in terms of growing the business.

"Because we've only got a paper-thin market share in any one area, there's still an awful lot to go at. We've recently delivered eight extra care units. We're working very hard to continue to develop that model. We're now on our third medical centre."

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A medical centre in Mold in North Wales will soon be added to the centres in Ripponden and Heckmondwike, in West Yorkshire, which Southdale recently completed.

Mr Moore added: "We're looking to grow our turnover to 125m over the next four years.

"We're hoping to do this through regional expansion. We have recently opened a Warrington office, and we've also got an office in Darlington and one in Castle Donington. The idea is that all four regions contribute 30m to 35m towards this level of turnover."

Mr Moore acknowledges that the recession was a painful time. The company became leaner by making some redundancies. Today, it employs 165 staff.

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He added: "Once we had come through, we could see our future mapped out. We've been on a constant recruitment drive since then."

There have been heartening recent successes. In March, Southdale revealed that it had secured contracts with a total value of more than 50m as part of its expansion plans.

The new contracts included work on the Fairfields Estate, in Leeds, which is worth 11.2m. The social housing development includes 132 homes for sale and rent.

It is being delivered in six phases by Southdale on behalf of Accent Housing Group and Leeds City Council, with work expected to be completed by May of next year.

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In North Yorkshire, Southdale is working on a 4.6m social housing scheme at Carlton Road in Skipton.

According to Mr Moore, these contract wins rubber-stamped the company's growth plans, by increasing its market share in Yorkshire, the North East and North West.

Southdale was also recently praised for its health and safety record. It was among 16 builders across the country to be commended in the National House Building Council's (NHBC) national health and safety awards.

Southdale cannot grow without attracting quality staff. Fortunately, there's no lack of talent in Yorkshire's building sector.

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Mr Moore added: "Given the fact that there has been quite a significant drop-off in work in the construction sector, and the recent announcements about Connaught and Rok, there are currently a lot of really good staff out there, who we'd love to snap up."

PAUL MOORE

FACTFILE

Name: Paul Moore

Title: Managing Director of Southdale, which is based in Halifax

Date of birth: January 15 1972

Education: Ryburn Valley High School and Huddersfield New College

First job: I worked as a trainee buyer for JJ Fee

Favourite holiday destination: Bintan (an island south of Singapore)

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Favourite film: Shawshank Redemption – I think any film with Morgan Freeman in is superb

Last book read: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – I'm just buying the sequel

Car driven: Audi S4

What is the thing you are most proud of? My family