Couple lay foundations for first animal hospital

Mar 18 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal

AHUSBAND and wife team are to expand their vet business by setting up Northumberland’s first animal hospital.

Malcolm Ness and Judith Joyce opened their first vets in Blyth in 1987 and have since built up a chain of eight surgeries under the name Croft Veterinary Surgeons.

The couple have now started on their biggest expansion and commissioned a £3m hospital in Cramlington. Work is under way to build a site with enough space to treat up to 100 pets at a time with four operating theatres, a hydrotherapy pool and even a water treadmill to help get injured cats and dogs running about again.

Malcolm said: “There are only a handful of practices nationally that can carry out the work we do and our new hospital will enable us to improve and add to the services we provide. It certainly demonstrates that the old All Creatures Great and Small style of veterinary practice is becoming a thing of the past.”

The couple, first bumped into each other in 1980 while studying at Royal Veterinary College in London, But it was by chance that they met again after Surrey-born Judith came up to North Shields to work as a vet.

After finishing his studies Malcolm travelled Europe as a practising farm vet and started meeting up with Judith while visiting his parents in North Shields.

He said: “It was pure coincidence that Judith found opportunities in North Shields. After getting married we realised we had enough experience to run our own vet business and have never looked back since.”

The new site will sit alongside a smaller Croft practice in Northumberland Business Park West and is due to be completed by County-Durham-based Meldrum Construction this November. The pair expect the new site to increase the firm’s 40-strong workforce to 61, including six new surgeons. This will allow Croft to double the 5,000 operations it carries out each year by 2011.

Martin Stephenson, director of corporate finance at Newcastle-based business advisers RMT, which helped the pair secure funding for the new hospital, said: “Croft is a real North East business success story, so we were delighted when we were selected to help it move to the next crucial stage of its development and expansion. It is an extremely exciting venture which will put not just the company but the region at the forefront of veterinary services.”