“It’s completely childish, the sort of thing a teenager rides,” laughs Mike Hedges, a director with family-owned regional contractor Beard. “I need to have a word with myself.”

Hedges is talking about riding motorbikes off-road, one of the things that he does in his spare time when not looking after three of the firm’s four offices. The 49-year-old father of four is coming up to seven years at the business, which has outposts in Bristol, Oxford and Guildford as well as its head office in Swindon.

He splits his time between the three offices he looks after – Oxford is the responsibility of another director, Dean Averies – but tends to find himself more in the Swindon headquarters. He is also in charge of health and safety, winning work, and frameworks.

 “We like to keep it lean,” Hedges says. “We don’t have multiple levels of directors, just the directors on the board. It allows us to stay close to projects and customers.”

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