Regional Housebuilder of the year: fewer than 500 homes

Winner
Ward Homes
The most striking result from Building's purchaser satisfaction survey was that Ward Homes was miles ahead in the category of value for money. Just about every buyer seems to have considered their Ward Homes home a bargain. Which is funny, because the firm's profit rose almost 40% last year. It has done this by getting the basics right. The whole firm has investor in people status; it has 10-year-long relationships with many suppliers, complete with formal partnering agreements, formal scoring and long interviews with each supplier to discuss their results; it builds homes with 100% SAP ratings; and optional extras such as body-jet showers, Jacuzzis and hot tubs. As for the future – that largely depends on Wilson Bowden, which bought Ward last year … One more customer that got a bargain?

'Fantastic company and fantastic house'

RUNNERS-UP
Bellwinch Homes
Bellwinch is an almost entirely brownfield developer with a 70-year history, loyal staff and a reputation for providing quality housing to Home Counties customers. The emphasis within the business is on training and retaining staff. It has trips on the Orient Express for staff who've worked for more than 20 years, and it works closely with Lewisham College to provide assessors for the NVQ route to gaining a CSCS card. And this makes sense, because those staff are very good indeed at their job. Take Darren Dockerill for example: he was the Construction Industry Training Board's Construction Manager of the Year.

'Bellwinch staff helped to take the stress away from our house purchase. We would certainly purchase another house from them'

Churchill Retirement Homes
This is a newly created firm with a bit of a history. It was started by Spencer and Clinton McCarthy, sons of John McCarthy, who founded the astonishingly profitable retirement home provider McCarthy & Stone. Churchill is the McCarthy brothers' attempt to challenge for a market that is demographically certain to expand. It has bullish targets for the next five years, involving geographical expansion from into the South and the Midlands. It is late enough in the history of the company to say that it is making the most of McCarthy & Stone's know-how, but too early to say how much of its market it can capture. Check back next year.

'Everyone is so helpful and willing to please'

CDC2020
This Brighton housebuilder has grown from a baby with sales of less than a million in 2001, to a strapping toddler with more than £4m of business, building 190 houses, last year. The CDC2020 mission statement is to create aspirational living spaces, mostly along the South Coast, and to do so it places a heavy reliance on design. A typical project demonstrates why this firm impressed the judges: the Cape, an art deco-style development in Rottingdean, comes with full-height windows, double-height ceilings and galleries, and chrome door furniture and sanitaryware. It also has a cute customer care policy of giving gifts at fixed stages in the purchasing process – including briefcase, Waterman pen, coffee table books and the use of a handyman free for a day. How clever is that?

'Without exception the company staff that we have been in contact with have been most pleasant and above all, helpful'