Our clients close up: Barratt Homes

At Mackoy we're privileged to work alongside some of the UK's biggest house builders. Helping to transform undeveloped land into thriving communities and do our part in bringing new homes to generations of families across the South of England. If that's not worth getting out of bed for each morning we don't know what is.

Like us, our clients are committed to quality and operate to the highest high health & safety standards (it's what makes us a perfect match) and one such developer we've collaborated with on a number of new projects over the years at Mackoy is Barratt Homes.

As the nation's largest housing developer Barratt Homes has a vision to lead the future of house building and it's one we at Mackoy similarly share in. Although admittedly they've been at it a lot longer than we have (60 years in fact) so it's an honour to partner with such a well-established household name in the UK. Not to mention a great endorsement that they've chosen us (on more than one occasion) to help with their builds.

In fact, our path into groundworks and civil engineering started out quite similarly to Barratt's own beginnings in the construction sector. When founder, Sir Lawrie Barratt, couldn’t afford to buy a house so instead decided to build one. In the same vein, our MD Mike established Mackoy because he had a vision for how he thought groundworks suppliers should be run. So, he took it upon himself to start his own company and put his ideas into practice.

Another way Barratt and Mackoy are similar is in our company growth. Like us Barratt grew quickly in their first decade in business, even listing on the London Stock Exchange in 1968, just 10 years after Sir Lawrie Barratt founded the company in 1958. At Mackoy we've also experienced similar unprecedented growth in our first 7 years in business. Expanding from just 7 staff when we started to working with a network of over 300 skilled operatives today. Quickly outgrowing our MD Mike's home office for a permanent Head Office in Hampshire.

We also share in our fantastic workforce too it seems, as back in 2013 Barratt's Site Managers around the UK collectively scooped a record 102 Quality Awards in NHBC's Pride in the Job competition. While at Mackoy we introduced our monthly Site Manager awards just this year, to similarly reward the hard work our Site Managers put in on our clients' builds. In fact, we regularly receive glowing (and unprompted) feedback about the work our Site Managers do. So it's great to be able to give back, and show our team how valued their work on site is, with initiatives such as our Site Manager of the Month Award.

Construction excellence and efficiency is a core component of Barratt's business model, and we're of the same mind-set at Mackoy groundworks and civil engineering. We're constantly evaluating the way we approach our groundworks contracts and if we identify a better piece of plant or a new working practice that will help us get the job done, better, faster and safer, we're all for it. The new Air Picks we've added to our onsite toolkit are just one example of the innovations we've invested in recently, but we've also added to our plant with brand new closed cab Hydrema dumper trucks, and Volvo Crawler Excavators too. All of which will help our groundworkers do their job more efficiently, and safely.

Our most recent collaboration with Barratt Homes has been taking place in Whitchurch in Hampshire, a fantastic site, brilliantly positioned between Basingstoke, Winchester and Andover, delivering 100 new residential units to the local catchment. In fact our Site Manager for Barratt Homes at Whitchurch (Paul Weaving) won our Site Manager of the Month for his work on the development, and it was great feedback from Barratt Homes themselves that ultimately contributed to Paul being awarded the £500 prize.

Like Barratt, we know our business's strength lies in our resource and our commitment to quality delivered to schedule. Attributes we look for in every new operative we contract to work on one of our clients' developments at Mackoy. Every member of our team is trained the highest industry standards, and has their work regularly inspected by our Site Managers, clients, and our own in-house SHEQ team to ensure the strict standards we set out in our Mackoy Good Practice Guide are met.

We've grown to a 300-strong network of operatives over our short time in business, but we're always interested in hearing from experienced groundworkers based in and around our contract locations in Hampshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Dorset. Regions where we're regularly contracted to deliver groundworks infrastructure for the nation's leading house builders. So if you're looking for a new challenge, and based within one of the areas we operate in, follow us on Facebook or visit our Mackoy Careers Page for more info about our latest openings.

Categories: Clients , Barratt Homes