A King’s Lynn family-run building contractor business is a prime example of how skills training and staff motivation can prove vital to the long term success of a company – as it celebrates its 145th anniversary in business.
Chas D. Allflatt Ltd has been in business in Lynn since the 1800s and there is barely a building in the town that has not had some sort of connection to the thriving firm.
The company is still run by members of the Allflatt family, with Roger Allflatt sitting as director of the company, his son Andy serving as managing director and his daughter Samantha Taylor working as commercial manager. A profile in the Lynn News has showed that the longer the company seems to be in business, the more it seems to prosper, with its employee count more than doubling over the last five years – despite the economic onslaught of the recession.
The two original Allflatts who started up the business in 1868 – Charles and William – were a bricklayer and a carpenter by trade, and decided to pool their expertise and set up a builders’ yard in Lynn. Roger explained that the company, though still based in Lynn, has worked on projects much further afield.
“The company has evolved from general maintenance building work in the 1800s to one which we pride ourselves in being able to do most things,” he told the newspaper. “Originally it began in Lynn, but now we have contracts which extend virtually across the whole of England.”
The company employs a skilled band of tradesmen with top quality industry training and qualifications. The projects they handle include new-build commercial and domestic properties, office re-fits and maintenance. Employees with specialist historic building skills have also enabled them to work on delicate renovation and restoration projects, including work on most of the churches in Lynn at some point. Roger – like his father, Keeble, before him also holds a Royal Warrant for the work the company carries out on the Queen’s nearby Sandringham estate.