Member Article

Bury BusinessLodge celebrates 20 years of building local businesses

Bury’s leading flex-space office provider BusinessLodge is celebrating 20 years of building local businesses. BusinessLodge, based on Barcroft Street in Bury, opened it’s doors in February 2001 with the aim to offer something new and exciting to local businesses and to put Bury on the map as a centre of commerce. The centre has an enviable reputation for providing top-end office facilities combined with exceptional customer service and a true community feel. It’s four unique buildings offer a development of high spec, contemporary serviced offices with a free gym, catering facilities and ample on-site car parking, minutes from Bury town centre and the M66/M60 motorways, BusinessLodge Bury is easily accessible for commuters. BusinessLodge is part of the family-owned Haircloth Weaving & Finishing Company limited, which was formed in 1951 and, initially, was a typical Lancashire weaving company using horse hair to produce fabric used for the interlining in men’s jackets and coats.

The business was approached by Bury Council in the late 1990s and asked to assist in a project to develop the Borough through the building of a flexible workspace. The Council had received an allocation of European Grant aid towards such a development and needed to find a partner in just 10 weeks – and failure to do so meant the funding would be lost and Bury would be considered less favourably for future European funding. Haircloth agreed and set about putting a project together with help from the Council. The result was that the proposal was accepted by Europe for grant aid and Haircloth built Europa House and BusinessLodge was born.

Kate Holt, Managing Director said: “It’s hard to believe that BusinessLodge has played centre stage in the Bury Business community for two decades. It’s been an honour to be part of so many organisations success stories and we love nothing more than seeing our clients thrive. “It’s always been our key objective to provide a fantastic place to work for both our own staff and our client staff, and we are proud of the community feel we’ve built, as well as our work in the wider Bury area through charity support.”

From the outset, the company committed to offering only the highest standard of facilities, an ethos that continues to this day. BusinessLodge has always been at the forefront of innovation and even 20 years ago heavily invested in installing the internet in every office, something that was largely unheard of back then, indeed many customers didn’t even use it as they were unsure what to use it for. Two decades on, the internet is an key part of the provision, offering resilience of a main line with an automatic failover onto the back up line, essential as the internet is critical to all BusinessLodge clients. Last year, the centre upgraded it’s cutting edge telephony system designed to enhance the security, reliability and scalability of internal and external communications. The investment came as part of BusinessLodge’s drive to be at the forefront of innovation, fulfilling the requirements of the modern office environment while futureproofing it’s services, as more clients demand a digitally transformative way of doing business. The system has been invaluable in the current climate, supporting the changing way people are now working with a mix of home and office bases. BusinessLodge is home to some of the area’s leading businesses including Easy Crypto, GB Car Loans, F Parkinson, FM Outsource, Weaveability, Will Writing Partnership and TheBestOfBury, as well as charities including SuperJosh, BABCP and Bury People First. It’s longest standing client is NDTI who have been located at Europa House since 2004. During the pandemic, BusinessLodge has provided training space for NHS Heroes the North West Ambulance service. In total, over 90 business are based at the Bury centre, along with over 60 virtual office clients.

In 2019 the business fulfilled ambitious expansion plans with the opening of new premises in Staffordshire to offer innovative office solutions to Stoke’s growing business community. The new building, Trent House, has been finished to an extremely high spec and offers modern serviced offices, virtual offices, meeting rooms and conference facilities, along with catering and relaxation options. BusinessLodge Stoke now supports over 50 companies.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Alison Mulrooney .