As we celebrate our 20th Anniversary, we wanted to reminisce on 20 years of 4th Corner.
4th Corner was established by Director Julian Ransom in 2003. We began life as a building and construction company, operating within the Banbury area. During this time, I encountered difficulties finding local companies that offered landscaping and grounds maintenance services to a high standard at a reasonable prices.
With Julian’s broad experience in these sectors, we decided to do it ourselves. We purchased a van and some gardening equipment and hired our first employee. Julian had a contact at Mainstay Residential and we won our first contract at Clarkes Court in Banbury. Before we knew it, we had built up our first route with a portfolio of grounds to look from Banbury to Worcester. Our guiding principal in these early days was based on great customer service.
By 2012 we had built up a couple of routes and hired our first apprentice, Giorgo. Giorgo now runs our soft landscaping business and is our longest serving employee.
In 2013, Amanda and Julian tendered for our first housing association contract at Places for People, based in Milton Keynes, which we won. This added another van and two more employees, Adam and Graeme. Graeme is now our Operations Manager and Adam runs our Banbury Town council Contract, they are our second and third longest serving employees respectively. After a steep learning curve of supplying services to the Housing Association sector, we delivered the contract exceeding all their expectations on service delivery, another 4th Corner success. As our reputation and our ability to service more sites grew we won more big tendered contracts to include Guinness, PA Housing and Orbit amongst others. Our ability to introduce new processes, systems, extensive training and development of key staff, whilst keeping the big focus on customer service has meant we have kept growing as an organisation.
In 2015, we tendered and won a soft landscaping contract for a care home in Worcester. Giorgo and Julian did the majority of the work on the grounds themselves. Picking up other contracts took, time, but over the past 7 years this department has grown steadily to a point where we are now suppliers to some of the UK’s biggest housebuilders.
We now have 35+ members of staff and we continue to focus on delivering a great service with excellent communications. We have a goal of becoming an award-winning business in our 20th year, to do this we will all have to work really hard to make sure we can submit a great application.
Ultimately, the future of 4th Corner is in the hands of our staff. We have recently expanded our office team to further improve our communications and efficiency and continue to offer flexible and part-time working hours for all our staff. In the coming years, we will continue to provide opportunities for development for all our staff. We aim to consolidate our position as a dynamic, leading regional landscaping company in the Midlands and South of England.
Recent News
RHS develop ‘Wellbeing Blueprint’ Garden
Natural England Announces New Green Infrastructure Framework
4th Corner: BALI Accredited Members
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