New year, new business for Swindon colleagues going their own way

Chris Main, Stuart Clark and Geoff Clark were part of a family-run company which worked on new-builds in Gloucester.

But they decided they wanted to set up their own firm which focused on helping people in Swindon rather than further afield.

They registered the heating contractor ASA Plumbing and Heating in October and start trading tomorrow, mainly installing bathrooms, cloakrooms and servicing boilers.

Chris said: “Running a company had always appealed to me and I was offered the directorship, it’s a really good partnership between me and Stuart.

“This has been a very busy time for us, getting everything ready, and we have so many quotes coming in already from customers, which is good.

"So when we do go live it should be quite exciting.

“There’s so much you can do with bathrooms now, there’s a lot of creativity in the designs and ideas.

"We’ve noticed that people are keener to do big projects now and are asking for advice.

“We follow the whole renovation process, from the concepts to the tiling to the finishing touches.

The business has already thrown its support behind ice hockey team the Swindon Wildcats, of which it sponsors a main board, and rehoming charity SN Dogs, from which the directors adopted four rescue dogs.

Last year, the team donated a Christmas hamper which was offered as a prize in the Wildcats Christmas competition, and donated a bottle of bubbly for a fundraiser at The Cross Keys in Royal Wootton Bassett.

Chris added: “We are keen to do as much as we can, community-wise, and host fun events and competitions.

"It’s nice to stay local and arrange things like that, give something back and provide a good work-life balance.

“We want to stay in Swindon to keep our prices and carbon footprint as low as possible.”

Stuart has more than 20 years of experience in planning and will focus on carrying out the practical installation and design work while Chris Main sorts the sales and accounting side of things.