Fifty years to the day that it started trading a Warwickshire property firm has signed the lease on its new under-one-roof headquarters.
The Wigley Group — which first opened its doors as a plant hire and earth moving company before moving into commercial property — has taken offices at the Cobalt Centre at Coventry’s Middlemarch Business Park. Working from three offices in Coventry and Rugby, the move will allow the family-owned firm to save costs by consolidating its staff at a single location.
“The company has developed as it has grown,” Wigley Group director, James Davies. “Originally it was a plant hire and civil works company which undertook drainage, road and other civil engineering contracts across the region.
“The founder John Wigley was a real entrepreneur and he developed several strands to the business including, at one stage, the manufacturing of plant and specialist prison fencing,” he explained. “At the same time, he built up land and property holdings which have subsequently been developed or are in stages of development.”
Four years ago the group launched two new companies, Wigley Commercial Services Ltd and WCS, to deliver commercial property, insurance, financial services and vacant property management. “Those companies have proved successful and it makes perfect sense, now they are established, to bring them all under one roof in a headquarters that reflects the development of the firm over the last five decades,” added Davies.
The Colbalt Centre was perfect for the company’s needs in terms of size and location and, he said, would give it a solid springboard for its development expansion over the next few years. Among the firm’s current holdings are the Sandy Lane and Henley Park Industrial Estates in Coventry, several major developments on Tyneside and land bordering the A444 in Foleshill in the West Midlands.
Wigley’s move to its Cobalt Centre offices was arranged by agents Bromwich Hardy, which has its own headquarters at Middlemarch Business Park. “We have acted for and worked with the Wigley Group for several years in various forms, most lately helping to market the properties it has across Coventry and Warwickshire,” said consultancy co-founder Tom Bromwich.
Late last year, and after a review of its holdings, the property group decided to put three of its assets on the market: a 33,000sq ft industrial warehouse on its Sandy Lane estate at Radford and two industrial properties of 4,320sq ft and 4,537sq ft at Henley Park. A “comprehensive” makeover has already started on both sites with vacant properties being improved, common areas upgraded and site signage replaced.
“We have more than 400,000sq ft of industrial property in the Coventry area and certainly our Sandy Lane and Henley Park estates are key employment sites for the city,” said James Davies. “We have always found them a good barometer of the health of businesses in the area and our anecdotal feedback is that our tenant companies are very optimistic.
“More than 300 staff are based at our developments across the city and we are confident that number will rise considerably in the coming months,” he concluded.
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