Gloucestershire glazing installer targets recover as lockdown eases

Published by

Nicky Godding

A Gloucestershire installer of windows, doors and conservatories is ramping up operations to meet pent up demand following the return to work on construction sites and homes, with support from Lloyds Bank.

Newnham-based Glevum is seeing increased demand from trade and domestic customers that haven’t been able to complete projects over the last two months due to the lockdown.

Glevum’s income ground to a halt when all work paused on new-build housing developments and on home improvement projects. With the return of construction work, Glevum has had to meet the cost of increasing its capacity after two months of reduced revenues.

The business turned to longstanding banking partner, Lloyds Bank, securing a £700,000 loan as part of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme. The finance gives the firm the working capital to increase its capacity and meet demand.

Gary Jones, Managing Director at Glevum, said: “Our pipeline of business for new-build projects, accounting for 70% of our income, was the strongest it had ever been before the lockdown. Despite the slowdown, we’re confident that we can build our way back to the strong trajectory we were on.

“Looking at our domestic business - when homeowners spend any amount of prolonged time at home, typically over the Christmas break, it makes them realise where they want to improve their homes. We’ve actually had a higher number of enquiries than usual about conservatories from homeowners, for example.

“The finance from Lloyds Bank puts us in an excellent position to get the business back on track to rebuild our revenues back to pre-Covid levels.”

Mark Smith, relationship director at Lloyds Bank, said: “Housing was in short supply before the current crisis hit. Encouragingly, lockdown measures have only paused projects, rather than cancelled them. This provides Glevum, as a key supplier to the residential sector, with a great opportunity to build its business back up.

“It’s a great example of one of the many firms we’re helping to get the finance they need to get operational capacity back up to speed.”

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.