Our Principles

1. Keep our personal touch, always

Our customer is everything to us.

Whether you’re in the first stages of contacting us or you bought a home from us 30 years ago; you’re important to us.

We pride ourselves on offering a personal touch that you simply wouldn’t get from a volume
builder.

One of our buyers told us what she’ll miss most about her previous home; the dry-stone wall that our founder built around her garden perimeter when he was just 13.

Another of our tenants is our personal champion, shouting from the rooftops about how much money she saves on her energy bills every month.

There are hundreds of stories like this. Personal relationships stick with us, and we’ll go above and beyond to help you.

2. Never give in

Running a housebuilding business is not an easy task.

Every day, there is a new challenge.

Negotiating and acquiring land; dealing with unexpected scenarios; working with a tricky, and often slow, planning process; property chains, that sometimes collapse; taking on huge financial risk and managing cash flow; sourcing quality materials at the right price – with unpredictable supply chains; an ever-changing economic and political landscape; new regulations that are dropped upon us with little support; managing contractors’ timescales and lead times to meet completion dates – the list is almost endless.

Each decision has an impact on another.

But through it all, we never give in.

We’re too passionate about what we do.

3. Evolve but protect our family values

We’re not stuck in our ways. With each site, we evolve.

We love to take elements of new technology, build methods, sustainability practices, materials, and design, and apply them to our next site, relevant to the local context.

We’ll only apply new ideas if they’re right for our customer, always upholding strong ethics, morals, honour, and trust.

Yet, we remain true to our family values by prioritising durability and craftsmanship, creating spaces that foster togetherness and a sense of belonging, ensuring that each home remains a sanctuary where memories are made and cherished.

4. Be a custodian of the Colne Valley’s identity

Just 12% of new homes are built by SME housebuilders. The 2007 recession wiped out a third of us.

Yet there’s a huge need for small, progressive housebuilders – we are willing to develop relatively modest pockets of land. The volume housebuilders, by contrast – whilst important – tend to build on large pieces of land, and build the same house types, whether you’re in Aberdeen or Avon. Towns across the UK therefore experience an influx of almost identical houses. The result is that communities lose their distinctiveness.

At SB Homes, we work with the planning department and local designers to blend our developments seamlessly into the Colne Valley.

We’re in tune with the areas we build in, meaning that the homes we build are unique to their environment and respected by local people.

5. Leave a lasting legacy for future generations

Our business is a part of our family. It’s in our blood. It may cause an argument every now and again, but it also knits us together even deeper.

We work hard, we champion and enrich the area we love, and we enjoy ourselves in the process.

We raise money for local charities, we host events and create a positive working culture.

In 2024, we plan on growing an oak forest on the Marsden Moor, with one tree dedicated to each home we’ve built. Our buyers will be given a walking route of how to get to the forest and see their own tree grow year-on-year.

Our spirit is at the root of everything we do, and it’s a legacy we want to pass on for generations to come.