By Dave Garness, Managing Director, Garness Jones
As another challenging year comes to a close with great uncertainty still ahead in terms of how we will be able to go about our lives and business, it is with great pride that I am able to reflect on 12 months of real progression and growth at Garness Jones.
I was immensely proud of how we quickly adapted last year and found a way to work with certainty and clarity across our business at a time of great uncertainty for the country.
That ensured we performed exceptionally well in 2020, and subsequently we have been able to build on that throughout 2021.
There has been a real focus over the past 12 months on our development internally, future proofing our business by ensuring each area of our work is led with complete clarity.
We have spent a lot of time reflecting and reviewing what we do, how we differentiate from others in the market, and how we can continue to provide unrivalled customer service.
Key to that has been investment in people and our technology and processes, particularly in our residential lettings management business and our block management department.
These are areas of the business which have established their own excellent reputations, with growing lists of impressive clients.
However, we were not prepared to stand still and are confident have made the changes needed to bring further improvements for our clients in 2022.
New directors appointed and teams strengthened through recruitment
Importantly, due to internal promotions and external recruitment, all individual areas of the business have the talent and experience within them to stand on their own two feet, whilst of course benefitting from being part of a collective group boasting 25 years in business. That will be reflected in how our business develops over the next year.
Our Block Management business is led by Liam Parker, who has taken on director responsibility this year, and has grown to manage developments of all types and sizes, supporting leaseholders looking to maintain the best levels of service and standards.
Prominent buildings including Queens Court in Hull, Raywell House in the East Riding, Hull’s expanding Fruit Market residential scheme and the new Alexandra House luxury apartment complex in Hornsea are all now managed by our team.
Similarly our residential lettings management business, Garness Jones Residential, is supporting an increasing number of landlords with their port-folio management and growth strategy, project management, property marketing, rent collection and maintenance.
This has come as we have continued to grow our Commercial Property Management team, with Simon Preston also becoming a director, and chartered surveyor Zoe Clarvis joining the team alongside our in-house facilities manager, administrators and accounts personnel.
That area of our business now counts the likes of the Hammonds of Hull development, JR Rix & Sons’ five-storey waterfront offices at Two Humber Quays and the 124-acre Humber Gate ‘energy estuary’ site in Grimsby as clients, amongst many others.
Finally, the commercial property business our business was formed on continues to thrive, helping to attract major investment into the region and ensure key developments prosper.
We were proud to recently advise on a multi-million pound commercial property port-folio investment, for which we are now providing ongoing management support, and to advise JR Rix & Sons on their purchase of their new waterfront headquarters.
Our agency team, led by Paul White who was also made a director this year, has continued to conclude significant deals.
This included assisting Hull-based outsourced contact centre specialist ResQ in taking 33,000 sq ft of office space in the Hammonds of Hull building, acting to Allenby Commercial in successfully letting their latest Trade Yard development in Willerby, seeing through the sale of office premises in Hull’s Maltings development for re-development, and the region’s largest business Park, Melton West on behalf of Wykeland where there has been significant announcements of late.
As ever, as the year draws to a close, we’d like to thank all of those we have worked alongside over the past 12 months, and look forward to further strengthening those relationships in 2022.
