Here's tow a very bright future for caravan firm

02/02/2011

A HULL holiday home manufacturer has seen a massive expansion since coming under new ownership eight years ago.

Gary and Lesley Cooper took over Normandy Holiday Homes in March 2003 when its founder and previous owner Mick Mulligan decided to retire.

At that time the caravan firm occupied one 7,000sq ft building in Bontoft Avenue and employed 11 staff.

Following the acquisition of two new buildings before Christmas, Normandy Holiday Homes is now spread across 7 units equalling 42,000 sq ft and boasts 47 employees.

The leisure home maker's sales have grown for the last three years with figures this year expected to be up ten per cent.

Mr Cooper puts this down in part to diversifying from export only to selling into the growing UK market.

The manufacturer now sells about half its stock to the domestic market.

He said: "When we acquired the business we were 100 per cent export and probably suffered from a little bit of eggs in one basket syndrome.

"Then four or five years ago we decided to look for a different market which happened to be the home market, the UK.

"This has probably helped us through the recession as we have spread our customer base and spread ourselves geographically."

Normandy Holiday Homes have also prided themselves on keeping abreast of the market trends and producing "fashionable" models.

The last decade has seen caravans transformed from small basic mobile homes to a large luxury leisure homes.

Normandy Holiday Homes now produce three different styles, the holiday homes, the lodges and the park homes.

All these products can be bought for residential use.

Normandy leased the two recent buildings in order to increase the production of leisure lodges.

Mr Cooper said: "We think the leisure lodges have serious growth potential.

"In the last two months we have doubled our output of these units compared to the same period last year and we expect this to continue."

The deal on the new premises was overseen by Dale Gooderham, surveyor at Garness Jones.

Link

Garness Jones

www.garnessjones.co.uk