In the Sunseeker factory in Poole harbour, workers are putting the finishing
touches to a gleaming 37-metre yacht. For this boat-building company and its
2,400 employees, the economic downturn has not led to layoffs or wage
freezes. Business – especially in the higher-end, mega-yacht category – is
booming, as Russian and Arab billionaires continue to flock to Poole for the
ultimate in seagoing luxury.
“Over the last five years we’ve grown as a workforce from just over 1,400 to
more than 2,000,” Robert Braithwaite, the founder and managing director of
Sunseeker, says. “The credit crunch has meant that demand for our
middle-range boats has dropped but the largest boats are still products that
people want to buy.”
Buyers with “only” a few million pounds to spend on a boat may have been
scared away by the downturn, Mr Braithwaite suggests. “But some people have
so much money that it hasn’t affected their buying decisions.”
Top-of-the-range yachts from Sunseeker start at £18 million.
Sunseeker brings in £300 million to Poole’s economy every year, out of a £2.4
billion industry total, and is the biggest employer. But local officials and
businessmen told The Times that it was the Dorset town’s spread of
business that make it well-placed to deal with the recession. Peter
Wheelhouse, economic development manager for Poole council, says: “We’re
very well balanced in terms of the sectors we have. We have manufacturing
jobs in the marine and aerospace sectors, a substantial banking and finance
sector and thousands employed in healthcare and the tourism industry.”
A tour of the town seems to bear this out. To the north is Cobham, an
international defence company with annual revenues of more than £1 billion.
Down the road is the Bank of New York Mellon, an asset management company
that moved to Poole two years ago. Merlin Entertainments has its
headquarters here, as has Animal, a clothing brand.
There is also a plethora of hotels taking advantage of Poole’s reputation for
excellent beaches. With the second-largest natural harbour in the world, the
city attracts about 2.3 million visitors a year.
“Although it’s diverse, Poole’s industry is not connected to car
manufacturing,” Mr Wheelhouse says. “That’s left us in good stead.”
Still, the economic downturn has had some impact. House prices have fallen by
12 per cent in a year. There has been a sharp rise in those claiming
jobseeker’s allowance, albeit from a low base.
Barclays, which has been in the town since the late 1970s and whose three grey
towers dominate the skyline, has scrapped its plan to move into a new
headquarters and is cutting 900 jobs. BK Bluebird, a caravan manufacturer,
recently laid off 270 workers but large-scale redundancies are uncommon,
figures suggest.
Poole is often mentioned in the same breath as Sandbanks, a mile-square
expanse of dune just outside the town that – according to some figures – is
the fourth most expensive place to live in the world.
Tom Doyle, a perma-tanned estate agent dealing in high-end Sandbanks property,
claims that buyers get good value for money.
“Sandbanks reminds me of Saint Tropez,” he says, pointing down to the cloudy
horizon from the window of his powder blue Bentley. “The beaches are the
best in Britain and some of the best in the world.”
Mr Doyle, head of Lloyds Properties in Sandbanks, has not seen business
crumble in the economic downturn. Far from it, he is hoping to close a deal
on an £8 million property this month. “We saw some decrease in demand last
year, particularly for the slightly less high-end properties,” he says. “But
four weeks ago inquiries started to pick up. There’s a lot of interest in
this particular house.”
In a place where a house on a main road with no garden can sell for £3
million, estate agents are constantly on the lookout for potential buyers.
The Sandbanks revolution, which has seen developers rush to pay millions to
replace decrepit 1930s bungalows with modernist atrocities called Destiny
or Escape, has had a trickle-down effect on house prices in the
rest of Poole.
A home in Lilliput, halfway between Sandbanks and the town centre, was sold
recently for £5 million. Houses in Poole itself, which has a population of
about 138,000, go for £202,000, or 30 per cent above the national average.
“Affordability is a big worry for us,” Mr Wheelhouse concedes. “Sandbanks has
had some effect. We are trying to tackle it by ensuring that as many
affordable homes as possible are developed.”
The council is building 2,500 houses in the town’s central area and hopes that
40 per cent will be available to lower-income groups, he says. Funding has
just been secured for a bridge that will connect the town to a former power
station site that has been primed for redevelopment.
Reconstruction has characterised Poole in recent years, even though schemes
have tailed off in the past 18 months. A large chunk of industrial land
north of the town is thriving with new businesses. The Royal National
Lifeboat Institution has built a training college and a big Asda supermarket
has opened. On Thursday, John Lewis announced that it would open a store in
Poole, with the creation of 100 jobs.
But for some local people, the rush to build has come at a price. Fay Barnes,
manager of Inner Sanctum, a shop in Poole’s old town, says: “I’ve lived here
for 25 years. It used to be such a diverse town, with an aquarium and lots
of small, specialist shops. Now there’s nothing for families apart from pubs
and clubs and for teenagers a few arcade stalls. The local market has been
replaced by a job centre. There are luxury flats but nothing to do.”
Poole’s town centre is a drab place.
The Dolphin shopping centre is dominated by high street chains that have
pushed out the more traditional stores. “To enjoy Poole you have to get to
the beach,” Ted Booker, a graduate student, says. “The town isn’t up to
much.”
Jason Miles, manager of The Men’s Room barbers, says the holiday trade will
increase his takings 20 per cent. He will use the extra money to pay for a
holiday in Portugal. “The beaches here are OK,” he confides, “but I’d rather
have guaranteed sunshine.”
To others, however, Poole is a perfect mixture of luxury and quaint British
tradition. “It is one of the nicest places in the world to live,” Mr
Braithwaite says. “I travel all the time for work but I wouldn’t work
anywhere else.”
Looking healthy on the beach
Company report: Lush Cosmetics
Lush, a cosmetics company, started making handmade beauty products in Poole in
1994. Since then it has grown to employ about 5,000 people across 650 stores
over 42 countries. It has a group turnover of £230 million.
The stores are famous up and down British high streets for their brightly
coloured marketing and for the smells of beauty products that waft out the
doors.
The bulk of the original management team still live in Poole, Andrew Gerrie,
its co-founder, says. “Maybe if we moved to the back-end of Wales we might
get a grant from the Government, but the original management team and
founders all live in Poole and see it as home.”
Lush has been expanding over the past two years but now plans to slow down
its growth, a policy that “coincides with the general recession”. Mr Gerrie
says. “We are very aware of what’s going on in the marketplace and we are
being more cautious. Having said that, it’s a great time to open new stores
because you can go out and get some great deals.
“We haven’t put forward any redundancy programmes and sales are pretty
steady. But you don’t want to seem like you are bragging if you’re doing
very well. You just keep your head down.”
Kim Coles, finance director of Lush, adds: “Being near the sea makes life
feel healthier – it’s not just that the air is cleaner but you’re closer to
being able to enjoy it. It’s great being able to get the same buzz from work
but here you know that you can wake up on a Saturday morning and be only
five minutes from having breakfast on the beach.”
Tide rising at the peninsula
Company report: Lloyds Properties
Everything about Lloyds Properties screams money. From the heavy wooden tables
to the deep leather armchairs, this Poole estate agent revels in its key
market: those wealthy few prepared to spend huge amounts on beach-front
houses in the Sandbanks area just outside the town. Its glossy brochures,
which advertise houses costing up to £8 million, have Russian translations.
Tom Doyle, its founder, can lay claim to starting the Sandbanks phenomenon in
2001, when he sold a 1,200 sq ft flat on the peninsula for £1 million. He
worked out that that made it the fourth most expensive home per square foot
in the world after Hong Kong, Tokyo and Belgravia, and got it formally
ranked as such on Donald Trump’s world property listings. Since then Russian
billionaires have flocked to the area. “We had one who bought a house for £5
million, knocked it down and spent another £5 million building another one,”
he says.
The attraction, Mr Doyle says, is beautiful sea views less than two hours
from London. In his Bentley, he claims, he can “make Chelsea in an hour and
a half”.
The credit crunch had “some effect”, Mr Doyle admits, although inquiries
started picking up again four weeks ago. “We’re seeing a return to business
at full stretch and usually when prices go up in Sandbanks they go up in the
rest of the country, too.”
