Biker goes up a gear building for wealthy

May 9 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal

AFORMER professional motor cycle racer and his wife have secured a multi- million-pound loan to expand their luxury housebuilding firm.

Dale and Jo Robinson, of Stone Homes, in Northumberland, have secured the funding from Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank’s Tyne and Wear Business Centre to help continue their business model of creating top of the range homes for some of the region’s wealthiest people.

Stone Homes, which the couple launched at Longhorsley, north of Morpeth, in 2001, builds houses in exclusive areas of rural Northumberland and has just sold a house near Morpeth for £1.3m.

Dale, originally from Newcastle, decided to set up in the housebuilding trade after retiring from professional speedway racing in the early 1990s.

Before setting up the business he sold motorcycles in and around London with a number of companies.

He decided to move into the housing sector after helping to transform a traditional Northumberland farmstead into his family home on returning to the North-East in 1999.

He said: “I enjoyed my time as a competitive racer, but soon realised that I couldn’t rely on it as a long-term career. Riding is now back to being my hobby, which has replaced a lot of the enjoyment I had lost through racing.

“I, along with my wife, now want to concentrate on strengthening Stone Homes, which this new funding will allow us to do, and we are looking at a number of new sites to build on this year.”

The couple, who employ 15 people and have a turnover of about £3m, plan to use the funds to increase the number of houses they build each year from four to five and believe they are now suitably protected from the effects of the credit crunch, which has led to a downturn in many areas of construction.

Mr Robinson said: “Like others in this industry, we aren’t completely unaffected by the credit crunch. However, as we are building exclusive housing for wealthy clients and are only building a handful of houses each year, we are confident that we will be able to avoid much of what has been happening.”

The firm currently has a number of houses on the market, including two at Morpeth and two at Bamburgh, and plans to begin work on another two this year.

As we are building exclusive housing for wealthy clients … we are confident …