‘We want to support local people’
AFTER spotting a gap in the market for high-quality office accommodation, Natalie Hewitt and Mark Carr decided to form a business which would help to meet the demand.
In 2014, the pair launched HCA Developments – a commercial property development company which specialises in the sympathetic renovation of under-used buildings.
The company’s aim is to convert neglected sites into much-needed office facilities for starter businesses and SMES.
The first project was a Grade II listed former building society on Cheadle High Street - which was transformed into a new headquarters for their other company, Hewitt & Carr Architects.
The move helped the company to increase its turnover by 44 per cent and expand its workforce to 11 fulltime members of staff.
Now HCA Developments’ latest renovation is helping other small businesses to grow and thrive.
Within the last 12 months, the company has successfully renovated the former Daisy Bank Care Home, in Cheadle, into the new Daisybank House business centre.
Natalie said: “In 2017 we realised we had outgrown our current offices and needed to secure a larger premises. Through networking and my role as vice-president for the Staffordshire Moorlands Chamber of Commerce, I was also aware of three other companies facing the same predicament.
“So, in March 2018, we bought Daisybank House and started to renovate it with the help of £100,000 of Rural Enterprise Programme funding.”
Daisybank was officially opened in September and today is home to 11 small, growing businesses including Premier Tax Solutions and Moorland Contract Cleaning.
The business centre boasts 14 offices, hot desk facilities and meeting rooms.
Natalie – who formed Hewitt & Carr Architects with Mark after being made redundant at the age of 28 – added: “During the next 12 months we will being searching for a suitable building to recreate the Daisybank hub somewhere else within the Staffordshire Moorlands, possibly in Leek.
“Helping to support local people to either set up their own business or support pre-existing small firms is incredible important to us. We want to provide businesses with the foundations to grow and succeed.
“Also, by recreating a venture of Daisybank’s size we would once again be able to provide employment opportunities and increase awareness of services and trades available in the area.
“Our longer-term goal within the next five to 10 years is to create a multi-disciplinary practice offering additional and complementary services which are currently outsourced.
“These could include a structural engineer, planning consultant and a health and safety professional.”