A building supplies company has created five new jobs in the last month as the building and construction industry continues to spike on the back of the pandemic.
Horton Building Plastics has welcomed the new recruits to its trade counters in Cobridge and Parkhall after seeing monthly sales reach record numbers.
It has also opened a new showroom at its Britannia Business Park headquarters to showcase its selection of doors and windows during the current surge in demand.
Director Rob Horton said: 鈥淲e were able to carry on operating throughout lockdown, despite most of our staff being on furlough. Now we are back up-and-running and things have gone mad 鈥 and it doesn鈥檛 look like it will be slowing down any time soon.
鈥淏efore the pandemic a good month for us would see us do about 拢300,000 on average, but recently we have been recording monthly sales of in excess of 拢500,000.
鈥淯nderstandably, there has been a massive surge in people wanting to do some home improvements this year and we thought it might have died down a little when the restrictions were eased, but things are still going strong.鈥
Rob added: 鈥淭hat is why we have had to take on five new employees at our trade counters. Having more staff means we can put a management structure in place and continue to meet the demand of our customers.
鈥淧eople might think we are mad taking more staff on when everything is so uncertain, but the demand is there and we will not stand still.
鈥淭he only issue we could have is our supply chain but we are planning ahead and trying to mitigate that by increasing the amount of stock we hold on site.鈥
Horton Building Plastics has invested in its fleet and a new EPOS system to meet the demand for its delivery service and improve efficiencies across both sites.
It has also launched an 鈥榓pproved installers鈥 scheme as part of efforts to repay its most loyal customers.
The company is now planning to open a third branch in Cheshire and expand its click and collect service for its account customers.
Operations director Matt Woolley said: 鈥淲e are an established business and things are going really well for us, but now we want to be as flexible as possible when it comes to the way we operate because we cannot predict what will happen in the future.
鈥淲e want to do things a little differently and that鈥檚 why we鈥檝e expanded into home delivery and diversified our product range to include things like conservatories. At the moment we are about 14 per cent above our sales target.
鈥淭he plan now is to expand our Parkhall branch, possibly taking on a bigger unit on the same site, and eventually open another branch.鈥
