£500k ‘garden room village’ fuels 25% sales boost for Welsh firm

The £500,000 transformation of a former farmyard into a showroom centre has helped a high flying garden rooms firm boost sales by 25%.

Soaring demand for the bespoke buildings – developed using aviation technology – has led to Rubicon Garden Rooms expanding its workforce and growing its order book.

The success story was highlighted during a ministerial visit by Ken Skates MS, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales, who toured the company’s site in Penyffordd on the Cheshire/North Wales border.

Once fully completed in the summer, the complex will be known as The Village, where Rubicon’s wide range of garden rooms will be on display.

Founder and managing director John Lyon said the development was already playing a key role in the growth of the business.

It allows customers to see first-hand the variety of buildings which can be used as home offices, granny annexes, spas, gyms, entertainment spaces and art and music studios amongst other things.

As a result, it had been the best start to a year the company has had since they were inundated with requests for home offices during the Covid pandemic which sparked the work from home phenomenon.

He told Mr Skates the firm is continuing to expand, and in the last 12 months the company has taken on four more staff, taking its headcount up to 20 workers.

Mr Lyon, who used his background as an aircraft engineer to develop zero maintenance, high durability garden rooms, said: “Fortunately, we are enjoying the best start to any year we have had since Covid.

“This time this year compared to this time last year we are at about a 25 per cent increase in turnover.

“I put the majority of that down to the fact that we have this new show centre.

“The market for what we do has been very strong and positive and developing the new site has made a massive difference for customers – the investment is definitely paying off.

“Customers can now see exactly what they are getting for their money. They can stand in, walk in, touch and feel, just like they do with a car in a car showroom.

“The bigger site also enables us to have far more displays than we had at our old site in Shotton.

“We are setting them up as all different types of buildings so people can visualise what they are getting.

“The site is only a mile off the A55 and means we are so well connected to the motorways and main roads to north Wales, onto the Wirral and over to Manchester and Liverpool.

Mr Lyon added: “I was delighted to welcome Ken Skates here to have a look at our newly-developed site where we have got our new display areas and our manufacturing and storage all in one integrated base.

“He was very encouraging and it was a great opportunity to talk about the history of our business and how we have come to be where we are and what we are doing for the future.

“It was absolutely brilliant that somebody from the Welsh Government could spare some of their time to come and see us.”

The firm’s growth is a family affair, with Mr Lyon’s son Rob joining the company in 2021 as the firm’s sales and marketing manager.

Rob Lyon said: “I don’t know of any company doing this which has got as big a footprint as we have got and the number of displays we have got, other than in London.

“We have customers in a 70-mile radius so that includes North Wales, Manchester, Stoke, Liverpool, the Wirral.

“We are selling the buildings to people for example who need more space, and it is half the price of a traditional extension.

“One of the main growth markets for us is the huge demand for annexes for older people.

“They sell their house, buy one of our garden annexes and install it in the garden of the daughter and son.

“We are helping the local authority because they are being looked after by their son or daughter in the garden and selling their main house which releases properties back to the market for young families to get on the housing ladder.”

Praising the company for its innovation and growth, Mr Skates said: “The firm’s base is in a great location and so accessible and it is marvellous what Rubicon Garden Rooms have done and what they have developed.

“To start with a start-up unit in Deeside and then to move to a new site which is being developed so well works perfectly for the company.

“Every country needs a mixed economy and businesses of different sizes across different sectors.

“It is also great to have a specialism in something and here in North Wales we really are at the cutting edge when it comes to advanced manufacturing and using different composites for manufacturing and providing services to the public and other businesses.

“Rubicon has grown and has a fantastic history and a great back story.

“It has grown from Deeside where they had start-up units to now in Penyffordd where they have an entire village which will soon be completed.

“They provide vital employment opportunities to dozens of people and they really are at the forefront of this particular sector.

“Their product is saving councils and families money and it is great to see they have a strategy for growth.

“Welsh Government is delighted with the way that innovative entrepreneurs and companies like Rubicon operate in Wales.”

According to Mr Skates, the Welsh Government had put in place a strategy to help companies succeed.

He said: “We set up Business Wales to support SMEs and micro-businesses and we also set up the Development Bank of Wales to fill the gap when it comes to financing.

“That’s why we’re confident the SME businesses in Wales have a strong and powerful future.”