A fast-growing Walsall-based company has found a new home in the town, thanks to a Birmingham-based industrial property specialist.
Adastra Access, which employs 80 skilled staff and turned over around £6m in its last financial year, is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of specialist access systems, including ‘mast-climbers’, suspended cradles, and monorail systems.
Mastclimbers are platforms powered by electric motors, which use specially-installed masts to ascend and descend the outside of buildings, and with 400 of the custom-built devices on its books, the company always needs a large and secure location.
However, as director Ken Goundrey explains, Adastra’s previous site in Bloxwich was being developed to provide commercial space, and the firm had to relocate.
“It was all very amicable. We always knew that land wouldn’t be available for the long-term, so once the development proposals were announced, we needed somewhere new, of a significant scale, and ideally in the same area, as our head office and administration staff are also in Walsall,” he says.
Fortunately, Ken knew Kenny Allan, the head of industrial at Birmingham independent property agency, KWB, and asked for his assistance.
“I knew Adastra, they have a high profile in the construction sector, and work for all the big names, such as Wates and Kier, and their requirement was very specific in terms of size and location,” says Kenny.
“They didn’t want to get into a bidding war with other potential occupiers, so the solution couldn’t be to consider a site which was known to be available, and so an off-market deal made sense.
“I know the market around Aldridge, Walsall and Bloxwich well, and had heard that the old GKN site on Middlemore Lane West could become available, if the offer was right, and the occupier was able to proceed swiftly with the transaction.
“Ken liked the site, it was 1.5 acres, so ideal for all their mast-climbers and other equipment, and the other party was happy to proceed. Even better, it was only 200 yards from Adastra’s head office.”
Adastra has now relocated all its equipment to the Walsall site, and is looking forward to a bumper 2020.
“Working for the construction industry is never going to be easy, but we probably have around 50 active sites across the country, which we look after from here, and satellite depot in Glasgow” says Ken.
“We always vary the work we pitch for, so we’ve been working on luxury apartments in Edinburgh, a new urban quarter in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a high-rise residential scheme in Glasgow, and an office skyscraper in London’s Canary Wharf.
“Locally, we also provided all access platforms for construction of the two towers at The Bank, in Birmingham’s Broad Street, the second of which completed in January. We never like to get ahead of ourselves, talking about work we expect to win, but are very confident of a strong year ahead.”