To celebrate our achievements over the past year we want to share some of our best bits of 2017 with you. Or you can make your own selection by browsing our blog archive.
In January our own Sam Hart was promoted to director of sales for Allison Homes to oversee all our sales functions including managing and implementing various schemes that we offer to help customers purchase their new Allison home at the best possible price.
Our sister company Larkfleet Homes donated £500 to the RAF Association - one of the Peterborough mayor's chosen charities for 2017. The cheque was presented to the Mayor of Peterborough, Councillor David Sanders, during the official opening of the Larkfleet showhome in Thorney near Peterborough.
To help the future of housebuilding Larkfleet Homes also handed over a model house to the Greater Peterborough University Technical College (GPUTC). The scale model of a typical timber-framed house built by Larkfleet Homes can be taken apart and re-assembled using a set of drawings which Larkfleet has also supplied to help students who are studying the built environment to understand how a modern house is put together.
The news that Allison Homes’ sister company Larkfleet Homes received planning permission for its revolutionary elevating house, to be built on land near Spalding, Lincolnshire, hit the headlines with lots of coverage. National daily newspapers, including The Times, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Metro and the Daily Mirror, covered the story of the house which could help bring thousands of acres of flood-prone land into development. Work on constructing the house, which will sit on a steel ring beam in place of conventional foundations, is set to start early in 2018.
Our parent company, the Larkfleet Group of Companies, was shortlisted for one of the construction industry’s most prestigious awards. The group was one of just eight firms nationwide to win through to the final of the ‘Skills Initiative’ category in the Building Awards. The judges were impressed by Larkfleet’s support for a number of training initiatives, our own apprenticeship and graduate recruitment programmes, backing for local colleges and schools and sponsorship of the GPUTC.
Our CEO Karl Hick was interviewed live on BBC2 television during the channel’s coverage of the budget. Karl warned that Brexit was in danger of depriving the industry of the skilled workforce it needs to build new homes. Many EU nationals are leaving the UK, he said, and others are less willing to come.
To celebrate our enviable reputation, we produced a short video featuring customers and staff talking about our latest show home and development at Oakley Rise near Corby. At the opening of the first show home on the development customers were full of praise for the company and its houses.
Finally, we were delighted to hand £250 to local charity Evergreen Care Trust to help with its Stamford Christmas Cracker appeal. We decided to back the trust after the charity was named as ‘best social enterprise’ in the Stamford Mercury Business Awards. The Stamford Christmas Cracker campaign raises money to support the elderly community in Stamford, Bourne and the Deepings.
