Lancaster business plans to take on new staff and expand services

Murton & Co, which will mark its tenth anniversary in January next year, has developed new branding and a new logo.

And the Lancaster-based company is looking to take on more staff and develop new services as it looks to the future.

Murton & Co works with a range of clients, including architects, developers, investors, local authorities and self-builders.

“The majority of our work focuses on energy performance, sustainability and compliance,” explained director Jonny Murton, who set up the company in 2011.

“Whether customers want an Energy Performance Certificate, accurate floor plans for a new extension or simply want to know how to make their property as energy efficient as possible, we can help.”

Mr Murton said his company had been extremely busy during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

“We have weathered the storm because we don’t just do physical surveys on site," he said. "We work with architects and developers at the design stage so most of the energy efficiency calculations can be done in front of a computer screen.”

He said he was planning to take on some new staff in the coming months. And he also wanted the company to offer new services based on improving sustainability.

They would include ‘passive house’ design work, where the emphasis was on reducing artificial heating and boosting heat retention within a home by ensuring it was highly insulated and airtight and windows were aligned to maximise the sun’s rays as a heating source.

The company would also move further into retrofit work, which involved making existing properties more energy efficient.

Murton & Co has worked with Kendal-based marketing agency Creative Lakes to refresh its branding to better reflect its core values and position in the marketplace. A golden ampersand is the dominant symbol in the new logo, which emphasises Murton & Co’s role as a connector and the importance it places on building relationships.

Its new slogan is ‘Building Performance’. That ties in with Mr Murton’s belief that if he can help to make a client’s property cheaper to run through energy efficiencies it will ultimately be more valuable to both the landlord and the tenants.

Mr Murton attended Sedbergh School and has a BSc Honours degree in Urban Estate Management. He worked for a variety of property development and consultancy firms across the North West, at one stage managing a £20m property portfolio, before setting up Murton & Co.

“I wanted to focus on energy efficiency and finding new ways of working to help the environment. I realised I had the skills, knowledge and experience of working in different sectors and I really wanted to be master of my own destiny,” he said.

Since then Murton & Co has gone from strength to strength. Projects have included assessing the energy efficiency of buildings on a huge commercial site at Chertsey, just outside London, which was being used as film studios and where Gravity and some of the James Bond movies were filmed.

Murton & Co also worked with a developer to ensure the energy performance of Whitbread PLC’s first Premier Inn on the Isle of Man exceeded already-stringent building regulations’ requirements by more than 30 per cent.

After the devastating floods following Storm Desmond in 2015, Mr Murton worked as a contract administrator. He liaised with insurers’ loss adjustors and policy holders’ loss assessors, to ensure flood-damaged homes were restored as swiftly as possible to their pre-loss condition and people could return home.

He also worked with businesses on several Kendal industrial estates and at residential estates in Levens and Lancaster to help owners improve their flood resilience measures, through the installation of flood barriers, waterproof paint and render and non-return valves for toilets and drainage systems.

“It was all about helping people to sleep at night because they knew they were better protected,” he said.

Mr Murton said he loved his job.

“Every day is different," he said. "You are meeting and speaking to a wide variety of people, overcoming challenges and helping people to realise their dreams.”