It is always great to hear that local businesses are doing well and opportunities for local employment are being seized by local people. And that is exactly why the growth of Southdale Homes and Circa, who are doing well on so many levels, is such good news for our area.

In the last few years, Southdale have expanded and diversified their predominantly partnership and regeneration work into private development, and created the distinctive division of the pink and black Circa brand. Southdale have then seen Circa go from strength to strength over the past 2 years.

The divisionalisation of Circa has worked extremely well as there was a realisation that it was necessary to bring together a specialist team who know the private market inside and out, who can compete in a difficult market place with major plc's comfortably, and also retain the integrity and personal touches that only a smaller, local firm can achieve.

This massive growth has meant that their head office, currently based on Westholme Road in Halifax, has quickly run out of space. Circa Director, Moya Jones commented that "The growth of both businesses has meant that a re-think of the business locations was necessary to keep inline and accommodate for our growth. In order to attract the best possible people with the right skills in each of the housing sectors, we feel that we need to be in a convenient and prominent position. When it was decided that Circa would need their own office we knew that we needed to stay within the Yorkshire region. We considered Leeds, but this can be an extremely expensive business address and difficult to commute to and from." She continues, "Circa are extremely focused on the people they employ, and therefore remaining local to our current office was a major factor. We also felt it to be far more carbon friendly than a more prolific address. Eventually we found a fantastic office in Elland over looking the canal which houses many attractive canal long boats". Circa's new office has open plan accommodation which adopts their transparent and open personnel policy and cultures. Not only that, but the office is also visible as drivers come along the Elland bypass. Moya continued: "It is so convenient for anyone commuting as it is only a few minutes away from junction 24 of the M62. All in all, it ticked all of the boxes and fits in so well with our environmental and ethical policies."

Things don't stop there for this fast growing group either - Southdale Homes have their own growth and expansion plans to accommodate. Inevitably, this means that the office where they have been based for many years now, will see a massive refurbishment and will provide far more modern and comfortable office accommodation for their dedicated employees.

Both Southdale Homes and Circa have purposefully set them selves many objectives to fulfil over the next few years which do not only relate to profit, but the personal growth of their teams, customer focus and aspects of social responsibility. Therefore, there was a great sense of achievement for the Directors and staff when they achieved 3 fantastic business accolades recently. In February, they were awarded a 2 star rating by Best Companies. In March they then ranked in The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Small Companies to Work For listing. Then to top these fantastic accolades, Southdale and Circa were listed in the top half of The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 listing, which details UK companies which have the fastest growing profits.

Southdale Homes and Circa realise the importance of working with other local businesses so that is why many of their contractors and suppliers are other local businesses. They feel this underlines the importance of working in partnership with other local businesses and see mutual respect as being fundamental in the way of working with together.