We are celebrating our 30-year anniversary
Company News | 05/01/2017Lakes Bathrooms recently celebrated a major milestone; its 30th anniversary.
This was made all the more significant by the death, very soon after, of co-founder, Robin Craddock, who raised a very proud smile for the achievement and insisted that celebrations should go on for the team of loyal staff that, with him, had built the business.
Today, Lakes Bathrooms enjoys significant success, with an annual turnover of £16million, a 100,000-square foot headquarters and an additional 70,000-square foot warehouse, a wholly-owned manufacturing subsidiary in China, over 40,000 products and product variants, and a talented staff of 77 in the UK, plus 73 in China. But the business started in 1986 from much more humble beginnings, with a 1,000-square foot facility and just two employees!
Predecessor, Provex Products was set up in 1986 by Alan and Robin Craddock, to introduce Italian bathroom enclosures, screens and doors to the UK. At that time these imported products were mostly acrylic, as was the trend in the eighties, but Alan and Robin rightly predicted the shift in consumer tastes towards glass products. Migrating towards this ‘new’ material in the bathroom, they firstly served the market by a strategic partnership with another Italian company and then by the production of the company’s own range of glass products, manufactured in China. In April 2008, the company rebranded to ‘Lakes Bathrooms’ to capitalise on the brand values of quality and value associated with its Lakes Collection of products.
In the last 30 years the business has enjoyed consistent year-on-year growth. According to managing director, Bev Brown, this is due to a continued focus on innovation, “We aim to be ‘superior as standard’ and that means introducing new products that offer increased value. As a significant example of this, we led the market to introduce our stay-clean coating, AllClear®, on all products. More recently we have transformed our Coastline and Classic Collections to optically superior PureVueHD glass – another example of driving greater value for the consumer.”
Beyond appealing to consumers, Lakes Bathrooms also attributes its success to strong trade relationships and quality of service. Its wide range of products are recognised for ease and speed of installation and are usually available from stock on 24-48 hour delivery, across the UK and Eire.
Celebrating the company’s success, long-server, Stuart McGhee, who has been with Lakes Bathrooms for over 22 years, enthused, “I’m so proud to work for Lakes. It’s a company that looks after its staff and customers really well and we’re always pushing forwards – planning for the next thirty years!”
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