Could you tell us a little bit about the history and heritage of Miller Homes? What makes you different from other UK developers?
- Founded in Edinburgh in 1934, it was originally known as James Miller & Partners. In 1943, it expanded into open cast coal mining. Post WWII in 1945, the Homes business was able to flourish and entered England. Growth continued between the 50s-70s as home ownership took off and by 1971 the proportion of owner occupiers in the UK was equal to those renting. Miller Homes remained in family ownership until 2012.
- In February 2012 the business went through significant transition as the Group (Construction, Mining, Developments & Homes) was sold to GSO Capital Partners. In September 2017, GSO sold Construction and Mining, retaining Developments and sold Homes to Bridgepoint. In March 2022 private equity company, Apollo acquired the business and a board restructure resulted in Stewart Lynes being appointed to Chief Executive Officer and former CEO, Chris Endsor becoming Executive Chairman.
Despite changing ownership since 2012 the business has successfully retained its original family feel and community spirit. The senior management team has played a large part in maintaining the family togetherness and instilling our company values.
Our ‘do it right’ attitude threads through everything we do, from safety to quality and looking after our people. This is what I believe differentiates us as a business and why we have so many long service staff.
What do you perceive to be the most important industry trend right now?
Improving customer satisfaction and experience is key and this is being driven by innovation through digitalisation. At Miller, we have embraced technology to respond to the needs of our customers and exceed them, by delivering the most advanced systems and customer experiences in the sector.
We were the first house builder to enable customers to buy online and the first to develop an app to communicate with them. We have also changed our options offering and moved more into visualisation techniques, to help customers create and envisage their dream home.
With the highest cost of living in recent years, how is this impacting you as a developer and what are you doing to support potential homeowners?
Economic drivers such as cost of living and rising interest rates have allowed us to reinforce the benefits of buying a new build property, offering customers reassurance of lower running costs and greater efficiencies compared to a second-hand home.
We have also been supportive of the industry led solution Deposit Unlock, which has replaced the government initiative, Help to Buy and believe this offers comfort to lenders and first-time buyers looking for 95% mortgages.
We actively encourage customers to get the best financial and legal advice and have a network of specialist new build brokers and solicitors that we can direct them to. If customers are concerned or worried during their purchase, we encourage them to come and talk to us.
How do you ensure your developments are as energy efficient as possible?…
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