We're Expanding Our Office!

One of the most challenging things about this pandemic has been losing the open, welcoming atmosphere in our office due to social distancing and home working. In previous years, not a single day would go by where frontline staff didn’t come in for a blether! There’s no denying that this has had a detrimental effect on all of us.

Our management team has grown considerably over the years and we’d got used to squeezing in, sharing offices and making up to a dozen cuppas at a time. We knew we needed more space but until the lockdown hit and everyone had to keep 2 meters apart, we hadn’t realised just how much.

We decided to start looking for somewhere larger. We heard on the grapevine that the property right next door to our current office was going to be going to auction but nothing materialised so we began looking at other options.

We wanted to stay in Bo’ness, so when an ideal property became available just a few streets away, we were very excited and even planned how we would use all the space. Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones interested and we were unsuccessful with our bid.

It was disheartening, especially since there was nothing else suitable in the local area. At one point we looked at a property in Grangemouth with a view to open a second branch, but the thought of splitting our team over 2 locations wasn’t appealing to any of us.

We didn’t give up hope though. We knew something would come up eventually so we kept a close eye on the listings. And we were right! We ended up coming full circle when the very first property we were interested in, went up for sale, right next door!

Our offer was accepted straight away and after what felt like the longest time, we finally got the keys!

We got an architect to draw up the plans and the builders have started this week and we are now on our way to doubling the size of our office space without having to change our address.

I’ll be sharing updates throughout the process and we cannot wait to open our doors to staff, service users and our local community again.

Watch this space!