Kent merchant Homeleigh Timber Supplies is gearing up to start a £1.5m five-year redevelopment designed to transform the company into a modern and environmentally sustainable business.
Plans will involve closing the Staplehurst town centre outlet, redeveloping the site into houses and moving the business to the nearby Woodford depot. The depot will involve the construction of a new 10,000ft² warehouse and 3,000ft² sawmill, featuring a green roof.
Homeleigh sales director Trevor Jenkins told TTJ that he and his brother Ray, managing director, had thought about selling the £8m annual turnover business, established in the 1950s, and exiting the timber trade.
“The easy thing would have been to just sell up and get out,” he said. “But we now have third generation family involved. Homeleigh Timber is an old company name in the timber trade and we want to protect that.”
As an employer of over 65 staff at its three branches, MD Ray Jenkins said he was proud the plans would guarantee local jobs long term.
Trevor and nephew Dean Jenkins, the latest generation of the family in the business, instructed DHA Planning to incorporate sustainable features in the redevelopment after being inspired by a visit to SCA’s forest and mill operation in Sweden with SCA Timber Supply managing director Rob Simpson.
As well as a green roof, greywater recycling will feature in the development which will meet BREEAM Very Good standards.
A new storage system will replace racking installed by his father Harry, a former MLM employee, in the 1960s.
“Independent merchants have to think more like Ryanair,” said Trevor Jenkins. “We have to be leaner to do the job better, because we can make it too easy for the nationals to get stronger.”
Plans include stocking biofuels, woodburners, long lengths and re-entering the joinery products and hardwood market with a new joinery centre.
The new sawmill will be the first element to be constructed in the next 18 months.
