Our Story

“ The Founding of Fox Construction Solutions

(or a potted history of how we got here by John Fox) ”

1983 - Having failed to obtain the A level grades my parents would have liked, and never having actually set foot on a building site, I was sent to Coventry, literally, to study for a degree in Construction.

1985 – My first experience on a building site, a 12 month placement with Kier Construction working alongside two site engineers on a four storey insitu concrete office block in Uxbridge. A hugely enjoyable experience which taught me that I had somehow fallen into an industry I would love.

1987 to 1997 - Having graduated from Coventry with a first class honours degree, I joined Tarmac Construction to work in their southwest region. Generally working across Cornwall and Devon throughout my ten years with Tarmac/Carillion, as I progressed to more senior roles I was having to spend more time working away from home so I started to look for a more Cornwall based role.

1997 to 2007 – I joined E Thomas Construction, part of the Mowlem Group, as a Contracts Manager based in their Ponsanooth head office. ETC were a great company, operating locally with a business culture that was a perfect fit with my values, and operational style. They were like a breath of fresh compared with my previous employer. Unfortunately, in my view at least, Mowlem were taken over by Carillion in 2005 and I was asked to take on a National role, taking me out of Cornwall – time to move again!

2007 to 2012 – I joined Kier Construction as their Area Manager for Cornwall, a role I thoroughly enjoyed until being made redundant as part of an overhead cutting exercise.

2012 to 2015 – I joined a local company, Ease Development Services, that had been established by two ex-Kier colleagues who contacted me on hearing of my redundancy situation. Ease was predominantly a Devon based operation and my remit was to establish and grow their presence in Cornwall. It turned out that, just as we were gaining some traction in Cornwall, Ease went into administration. It was then that I decided enough PAYE, it was time to set up on my own.

2015 to 2019 – The first two Fox contracts, both for private clients, resulted from contacts that had been established during my time at Ease. I was fortunate that both clients chose to stick with me and the small team of trades that came across with me. Over the next few years the company delivered various, projects under a Construction Management delivery model as well as providing client side project management services on a number of larger scale schemes.

2019 – With the business growing steadily through reputation and recommendation, rather than through an overt marketing strategy, it became necessary to share the load and Kevin Bate joined FCS as an equal business partner and co-director. Kevin and I had worked together for 10 years at E Thomas, so I knew he would be a great fit but, even so, this was probably the best single decision I have made since deciding construction was the industry for me way back in 1985.

2019 to present – With Kevin on board, the business has gone from strength to strength; we have recruited an excellent team, all of whom one or other of us has worked with in the past, and we now have the in house experience and capability to deliver pretty much any project you could think of – as long as it is in Cornwall of course!