Stephen McCoy leads Adderstone Living, the affordable housing arm of property development group Adderstone. He has 25 years' experience in the sector.
What was your first job (and how much did it pay)? My first job was as a £25 per week YTS (Youth Training Scheme) trainee at a local building contractor. It was a terrific training ground with time spent in planning, estimating and quantity surveying. Indeed, quantity surveying was eventually for me, so being paid to go on to study it at college and then university while securing real world experience, was a dream job looking back.
What is the best advice or support you’ve been given in business? That’s easy; it’s the advice and support given by Ian Baggett and the Adderstone Group to set up Adderstone Living. Ian, who I have known for many years, has an eye for an entrepreneurial opportunity and loved the proposition of a business delivering land-led affordable housing. In four years, we have built a £30m turnover business. This would have been impossible without this knowledge and help.
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What are the main changes you’ve seen in your business/sector, and what are the challenges you’re facing? Rampant inflation, changes to building regulations, new planning regulations, restrictions, labour and material shortages have all triggered big changes in the housing world. However, there’s light at the end of the tunnel and what we all now crave is a bit of political and economic stability.
How has the pandemic changed the way you work? I think the expectation here would be that we have embraced hybrid working and do everything via Teams meetings. However, this is the opposite of our approach. With a rapidly growing team of staff, it’s been essential that they have bonded, learnt and meshed together. Site managers can’t work from home and we have an amazing office environment to work in for everyone with perfect IT.
Who is your role model in business? My previous managing director David Mellor. I worked with him for years and thrived under his guidance. We had a really successful business and his style really suited me. He hardly raised his voice and was always supportive, creating an exceptional work environment. I was a different person working under his tutelage and owe him a great deal – and I should probably tell him more often.
What would your dream job be? I love my job now with all its challenges and potential but if I’d chosen a different career, it would have been as a chef running a small restaurant in a British seaside town. I’m sure I have a rose-tinted view about how tough the job would be but it remains a nice thought.
What advice would you give to someone starting a career in your sector? Believe in yourself and always try to listen to the quietest voice when in a meeting. I would always encourage people to start out by asking as many questions as possible and contribute with sensible views and opinions whenever they can.
What makes the North East a good place to do business? It’s a very close-knit community with a lot of loyalty to each other. While it’s undoubtedly competitive in the housing sector, we also get on with most of our competitors and respect what they do.
How important is it for business to play a role in society? We are building affordable housing and it’s never lost on me how important that is. It is interesting to reflect that our properties will be here for decades to come, creating vibrant communities and homely places where people want to live and build their families.
Outside of work, what are you really good at? I love to keep-fit and exercise most days with cycling being my main interest. I relax by cooking and have a few signature dishes that I excel at. Above all though, I would hope that I am really good at being a dad to Oscar and husband to Danielle.
