The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Expansion continues at group after four decades
Purvis Group of Lochgelly has come a long way in the last four decades – and its expansion continues.
Originally a plant-hire company, the operation has grown and diversified into a one-stop shop for all construction, recycling and haulage needs serving Fife, Central Scotland and beyond.
The Fife company started out in 1980 as a small operation employing only founder Bob Purvis, but now has around 400 staff across nine businesses.
Bob is now 72 but he still plays an active role as chairman, while his son Craig is the managing director.
Several other members of the family are also involved with the business. Craig’s sister, Lyn, is HR director, while her three sons, Scott, Barry and Kevin, work in the civil, transport and plant departments.
The managing director’s cousin, Cameron Bell, has been with the firm for 30 years and is workshop manager, and Craig’s son, Aaron, works on the plant side after completing his apprenticeship.
The managing director said: “Dad oversees the overall picture and keeps us on our toes.”
Purvis Group, like many firms in the UK, has unfortunately not managed to avoid the negative impact of coronavirus. But Craig added that it remains in a healthy position financially.
“We are very much open for business and continue to look after customers’ needs,” he said.
Future expansion of the group includes a new £3 million headquarters which will open shortly.
Bob started the business as a one-man operation in a small garage in a rented yard in Lochgelly, with just a van and trailer, petrol mixer and a vibrating plate.
He had previously served his plant mechanic apprenticeship with Costain at the Westfield open-cast mine.
He then worked for Tractor Shovels as the firm’s youngest-ever foreman, before a brief spell teaching at Perth Technical College.
Craig added: “Although he loved teaching, the pay was not enough to bring up his young family living in Perth at the time.
“He left the college and went back to what he knew best – plant hire.”
The major breakthrough in the early days came after Bob bought the plant fleet of Barratt Homes.
His fleet jumped overnight from a couple of dozen to more than 100, but that is still just a fraction of the 600 or so the group now has in its operations.
Asked about what opportunity Bob had spotted in the market, the managing director said: “Dad’s foresight was to ask his customers what they needed, then go and source it rather than try to hire just what we had.”
Craig said the massive growth of the business over the decades had gone beyond his father’s initial hopes.
“It definitely exceeded them. When dad started out, his ambition was to have a small business to offer a good standard of living for his family.”
The managing director said reasons for the continuing success of Purvis Group were hard work, commitment to look after customers and doing things well.
Craig said the business sectors responsible for the bulk of group turnover are plant hire and construction, but the recycling division has been strong as has storage and distribution.
The Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 delayed the relocation of Purvis Group to a 16-acre HQ site at Lochgelly, which will have 100,000sq ft of warehousing and 30,000sq ft of offices.
This is now expected to be fully open in June.
Craig said they had been trying to buy the site for 15 years, so a delay of a few months was no big deal.
Up until now, Purvis Group has been using yards
at Cartmore Industrial Estate, but has outgrown them.
Having everything under one roof will bring efficiencies and allow future growth.
Craig said one of the reasons for the move is to enable one of its operations, Cartmore Building Supplies, to expand with more stock and new lines.
He added: “The new site will also give us a better visual and more-accessible site, next to a junction on the A92.”
The managing director said the arrival of the virus also had other impacts on the group in the early months.
“Business just stopped. Construction sites just closed. People stopped buying. These were very worrying times, then gradually things started coming back,” he said.
“Our skip-hire business was one of the first to start. Then the building supply merchants started to get busy. But our construction division wasn’t so lucky.
Most of the main customers just shut the doors.”
So where does Craig think Purvis Group will be in five years’ time?
“We will continue to grow our business and look out for opportunities as they come along.
“We are very fortunate to have long-serving staff with little turnover.
“We will be losing a few people over the next couple of years to retirement, but this will allow us to bring on new apprentices to follow in their footsteps.”