Mountjoy _________________________________________________
Originating on the Isle of Wight, following local authority unification and privatisation of certain services in 1992, construction and maintenance company Mountjoy has established a strong foundation of its own. Incorporated in 2006 and having recently gained independence from the QUARR Group, the 350-employee contractor operates from its Portsmouth headquarters, with satellite offices spanning Southampton, Horsham, Woking, Isle of Wight, and Windsor. With a business model that splits 75 per cent maintenance and facilities management with 25 per cent construction, Mountjoy distinguishes itself from traditional contractors vulnerable to market fluctuations, by avoiding new build housing in favour of planned preventive maintenance, compliance work and construction, operating predominantly in the public sector.
Partner and Director, Duncan O’ Rourke, expands on Mountjoy’ s broad range of projects and tells Construction & Civil Engineering more about current work, employee benefits and numerous social initiatives.
“ We’ re different to our competitors because three-quarters of the business is made up of longer-term maintenance contracts,” Duncan begins.“ They can range from two or three years through to ten-year contracts. We also have a place on numerous construction frameworks including Hampshire County Council’ s ICF3 / Southern Construction Framework, PAGABO and Portsmouth City Council’ s Primary Contractor Framework which offer a level of certainty of opportunity. This combination gives us far more stability in the market – we’ re not as susceptible to the peaks and troughs of the construction industry. We’ ve benefited many times over the years from that.”
A key long-term collaboration for Mountjoy is the 16-year partnership it has with Portsmouth City Council.“ We’ ve really embraced their way of working, which revolves around the systems thinking model,” reveals Duncan, regarding the successful maintenance and evolution of this relationship.“ This is a different way of looking at workflows and processes – it’ s less transactional than the traditional view, where decisions are made based on a rigid set of criteria. Our Managing Director, Simon Ingram, has been very close to the city council contract throughout its entirety, through his time as finance director up until now and we are clearly hoping to continue that relationship for many years to come.”
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