This summer, we realised that Sheriff Construction reached its 18th year of business. For many people, an 18th birthday is often referred to as ‘coming of age’, a point that marks the transition from childhood to adulthood.
However, that transition is never really an overnight occurrence, rather a continuous journey of growth that continues far beyond the birthday celebrations. In much the same way, Sheriff’s journey from a small family business to the much bigger organisation we’ve become today has been a long pathway to maturity and we’ve still got some more growing to do! Read more of our story here.
The founding years
Incorporated on 2nd August 2005, what was then called Sheriff Builders was a small family business consisting of a few bricklayers and labourers that worked on private housing jobs and small scale contract work. There was no office and all administrative work was carried out in the evenings at the founding member’s home.
As we gained more experience, contractors like Wates and Hill Partnerships were among the first to give us the opportunity to take on slightly larger scale work. One of our earliest accomplishments was a small block of flats on Falconers Road, Luton.
We were feeling ambitious but then came the recession of 2008 and some tough times as we struggled for a few years to keep the business afloat. However, we came through this and in 2009 moved our administrative functions into an office in Luton. It was tiny but still a step up from the dining room table!
The formative years
Between 2012 – 2020, Sheriff grew into something that’s unrecognisable from those early days.
In 2012-13, after carrying out a financial assessment of the business, we devised a new strategy for growth and made the decision to set up a specialist flat-roofing division that would operate alongside our brick and blockwork.
With our reputation in both brickwork and roofing gaining ground, we began to take on bigger contracts, for instance working with L&Q at Master Gunners and Higgins at Park Royal in London.
By 2014, we had upgraded our policies and practices so as to achieve accreditation with Constructionline and other industry-recognised bodies and began working on what was our largest flat-roofing contract at the time (at the former Walthamstow dog stadium). This year, we also moved our office into bigger premises in Luton but our business focus was firmly set on supporting contractors in London and the Home Counties.
That strategy worked well for us and over the coming years, we went on to pick up contracts with many of the region’s leading developers including those who had given us the early breaks like Wates, Hills and Higgins plus others like Fairview, Inland Homes and Mears. We’re proud that some of these projects have picked up awards for Health and Safety and/or quality of workmanship.
By 2016, we began to think again about how our business model might adapt and decided that, while our bread and butter was to continue to fulfil contracts for other developers, the time was right for us to have a go at our own property development projects. We began fairly small, with the conversion of a public house on Russell Street in Luton then continued to build up this work, primarily seeking out local brownfield sites to develop.
In 2018, Sheriff Builders ceased to exist!
The good news is we didn’t go out of business but simply changed our name to Sheriff Construction. Seeing how much the company had changed since 2005, we felt this change better reflected the larger and broader work we were now taking on at multiple sites across our brickwork and roofing divisions.
Growth, growth, growth!
So, here we are today and the last few years have been important ones in our journey.
Of course, there was the Covid pandemic which brought all kinds of challenges for the construction sector but, thankfully, we weathered that storm and continued to build up the business.
Now regularly employing over 100 subcontractors, we’re proud to be counted as a leader in the fields of both brickwork and roofing. Some of our more recent flat-roofing works include Cheshunt, New Hayes and Edgware. Meanwhile, our brickwork (now managed under a sister company, ‘Sheriff Brickworks’) won it’s largest contract to date earlier this year in Woolwich.
Our property development arm, now managed by another sister company, ‘Limon Homes’, is also going strong. We’ve completed several projects in Luton such as at Round Green and Kingham Way and have more in the pipeline!
Making our presence count
Throughout our lifetime, Sheriff Construction has developed its sense of social responsibility and tried to show support for others. That’s included making donations to charities, sponsoring kids’ football teams and in some cases, donating our teams’ time to support charitable projects.
In 2019, after hearing the news of an earthquake that hit Albania, we took a collection to help. Many of our team donated the value of a day’s work and some gave even more. In the space of just a few days, we raised over £5000!
More recently, our team came together for a charity barbecue and raised £3177 (including Gift Aid) for Macmillan Cancer Support.
And finally
Eighteen years after we founded this business, we’re not ready to stand still and remain committed to keeping our company growing while ensuring this is done sustainably.
Our history shows just how far we’ve come and our success to date has to be credited to the commitment and dedication put in by all members of our team. We may be a much bigger team than we were once, but our family-business values remain the same.
Thank you to all who’ve helped us reach this milestone! We’d love to hear from you if you have a special memory of Sheriff from the last 18 years so reach out to us over on our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.
29.08.2023
Feature image: Freepik
