How constant innovation is opening doors for civil engineering firm

In the latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate Magazine, we meet the team behind Whitehouse Construction – an award-winning firm which develops technology to protect homes at risk of flooding.

Last year, the firm, which recently revealed plans to establish a new headquarters at Ivygrove Developments’ Looms Business Park, was recognised with a King’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) after developing a flood resistant door and gasket for domestic properties, providing a passive defence against water.

Designed and manufactured at its Derby facility, the innovation is designed to better adapt the UK’s housing stock to the extremes of climate change.

Whitehouse was founded in 1977 by Brell Ewart – a civil engineer – who decided to focus on the water sector.

Roll forward to today and Whitehouse employs 120 people – but it still remains very much a family business as Innovate discovered.

Brell’s daughter, Jo Ewart-Sear, who joined the company at the age of 17, has led the firm as its chair since her father’s retirement in 2022. Her husband and brother-in-law are also both members of the team.

Jo has been with the company for the past 20 years, alongside colleagues who, typically, are with Whitehouse for the long haul – with more than 30% of employees having completed at least a decade of service.

Jo told Innovate: “Those people feel like family now. When you work with someone for years and see them every day, they kind of become family.

“And we have a number of members of staff who are related, including a grandmother and her grandson who work alongside each other in our manufacturing centre.”

Whitehouse has always viewed its people as the main drivers of the business, with the leadership team appreciating the value of a skilled, motivated and settled team.

Jo told Innovate: “We can’t deliver anything without the skills of our people.

“All our construction sites work as teams, and if you’re a close-knit team, and you all know each other’s capabilities and look after one another, you create an interdependent safety culture, where everybody is looking out for everybody else, and then we can really deliver for our clients.

“That really is a team effort from our managing director right through to the guys who work on the ground.”

Another key part of Whitehouse’s success is its commitment to continuous innovation and approach to problem solving.

The development of its flood protection products is a prime example.

Speaking about the King’s Awards recognition, Jo told Innovate: “We saw the King’s Award as a way of really flying a flag because we really need to get a message out there.

“Flooding is such a major issue. Twenty years ago, it affected one-in-six homes in the UK. Now it’s one-in-four. And we’ve seen locally the damage that the likes of Storm Babet caused across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

“These solutions can really help. Changing the doors and looking at the fabric of a building to make it more resilient is definitely a way to go rather than trying to move water elsewhere because, ultimately, that water has to go somewhere.

“We’ve got to learn to live with the issue better and change mindsets.”

To read the feature in full visit https://heyzine.com/flip-book/bdf509d000.html#page/26.