Former chef’s Newcastle landscaping firm plants seeds of growth after lockdown success

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A husband and wife team’s Newcastle gardening business is set to expand and create jobs after flourishing in lockdown.

Michael Bell-Saunders’ firm MBS Gardens is now fully booked for the rest of 2021, thanks to soaring demand for garden transformations during the pandemic, and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Mr Bell-Saunders has announced plans to grow MBS Gardens and recruit new staff so he can move into bigger commercial projects in 2022, with the support of the North Tyneside Business Factory.

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The former head chef launched MBS Gardens in 2018 to provide landscaping and design services to residential clients in and around the North East.

Initially working on smaller garden maintenance projects, the business has grown to offer complex garden design and landscaping services to both residential and commercial clients throughout the region.

He said: “The business started really as a personal challenge to see if I could make self-employment work for me and my family. To be looking at a full order book until next year gives me a sense of satisfaction that I made the right decision to go out on my own at what was a difficult time.

“I was actually a head chef previously but the anti-social hours didn’t fit with a young family so I moved into landscaping work to help fuel my own creativity and apply some of the skills I had learnt in managing garden spaces.

“I really took to the work and thought perhaps it might be something I could make a go of in terms of running my own business. I took up the challenge and within one week MBS Gardens was trading.”

With two children and a three-month old baby at home at the time, Mr Bell-Saunders set up the business with support from his wife, who had just been made redundant from her position as a university lecturer.

They created the basis for MBS Gardens with Mrs Bell-Saunders looking after the back-office business operations while her husband managed all garden design, quotations and labour.

He said: “We have been lucky to build an excellent reputation and have grown from residential schemes to commercial work for schools and local authorities. We have also expanded the garden design side of the business to offer a computerised 3D design service to transform outdoor spaces from concept to completion.

“The design side of the business has proven incredibly popular given demand from people looking to really transform their outdoor space after lockdown.”

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The firm is now working with the North Tyneside Business Factory to help manage the upscaling of their enterprise as they enter into a new growth phase.

He added: “Our business advisor at the Business Factory, Janice Ross, has been an invaluable source of advice and guidance as we started to look at how we can grow the business in a sustainable way. We want to increase our team but also develop our current client base to allow for more tendering opportunities for longer-term commercial landscaping design and maintenance contracts.”

North Tyneside Business Factory is the business support programme from North Tyneside Council which is supported by the ERDF and delivered by TEDCO Business Support.

Janice Ross, business advisor with North Tyneside Business Factory, added: “Not only has the hard work and dedication of Michael and Gemma resulted in a solid new business pipeline, they are also taking steps to secure the future of their business with a new growth strategy to create jobs and opportunities.”

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