With strategic investments and new facilities, Deeside Timberframe prepares for its next phase of UK expansion
Combining tradition, technology and bespoke touches, Deeside Timberframe (Deeside) is one of Scotland’s leading timber frame companies, with a commitment to quality, sustainability and strong customer relationships. Founded in 1985 as a small manufacturing operation, the business has grown steadily over the past four decades into a major offsite manufacturer, employing more than 100 people and delivering projects across the length and breadth of the UK.
With an established footprint and a growing portfolio, Deeside continues to build on success with further investments in capacity, technology and people to support growth. Managing Director David Crawford reveals more about the company’s evolution and what comes next. “The past couple of years have been extremely challenging for the industry,” he explains. “Presently, market conditions are suppressed and our overall volumes are down about 25 per cent compared with figures in 2022-2023, however I am confident that with the investments we’ve made in people, processes and equipment, we’ve positioned ourselves to be a business that can deliver in excess of 4000 units per year, and we have the capability and proven track record to get there quickly and effectively.”
Deeside is a key part of Scottish housebuilding and construction company, The Bancon Group, which makes up around a quarter of its current turnover. The remainder of Deeside’s work sits with external clients that span from private SMEs to National PLCs, housing associations and local contractors. “We operate in four key sectors,” David highlights. “Private house building, affordable social housing, the commercial sector – consisting of hotels, schools, nurseries and healthcare projects – and lastly, the single site sector, which is your typical bespoke family home. Private house building has been our focus for the past two years, as the funding stream for affordable housing has been lacking, but the demand for more affordable housing across the UK continues to rise. However, with government funding and policy changes, there are signs of more opportunities in this sector returning. Our business model is to balance the private house building and the social house building 50/50.”
Even though its focus has been primarily on private house building, Deeside was recently successful in winning the Social Housing Project of the Year, at the 2025 Structural Timber Awards for its Cloverhill development in Aberdeen. “Cloverhill is a real showcase for what can be done with timber frame, especially if the right people are sitting at the table early enough to engage and drive a project,” elaborates David. “In addition to Cloverhill, we’re currently delivering several projects for Adderstone Living in the Northeast of England. These are also affordable housing contracts and the relationship that we have built with Adderstone over the last 15 months is further testament to upfront engagement and collaborative working.”
Enhancing efficiency
Alongside investing in valuable partnerships, it has a dedication to sustainability and has signed up to a net-zero strategy in conjunction with Scottish Enterprise, examining operational areas such as forklift movements, waste utilization, sourcing electricity for its factories, haulage requirements, company vehicles and paper usage across the businesses.
While remaining committed to green initiatives, Deeside has also expanded and upgraded its facility in Throsk for higher capacity and automation. “This investment was all about balancing our skill and experience with health and safety, process output and efficiencies, while still giving us a flexible product offering. It was fundamentally about moving the business along in an ever-changing industry and positioning ourselves for growth, while giving us more capacity. We’ve increased our headcount by about 15 per cent in the last two or three years, we’ve brought 95 per cent of joist processing in-house, which was all previously outsourced to a third party, and we’re now able to make around 40 percent of all our own roof truss developments in-house too.
“The next big milestone for the business is investment and expansion of our North Scotland premises which will see increased capacity and additional product offering coming on stream in quarter two of this year. This will assist the business growth into the central belt and allow capacity from our Throsk facility to push further into the English market. Behind the scenes, we’ve been working hard on a digital software called Procore, which was originally designed to help our site supervisors sign off timber kits, but is now being used throughout the entire business for reporting, observations, quality control and higher efficiency. Procore has been a powerful tool in bringing time and cost saving benefits to our clients. We’re looking to develop it further over the next year or two as we continue to work with more customers who are first time to timber frame.”
People, products, and processes
Originating in the North of Scotland, Deeside now has a strong presence throughout the UK and acquired an office in Warrington, Cheshire, over a year ago, which David says was the first step in committing to its expansion in the English market. “Three years ago, we decided to move further afield from Scotland, as we saw a great deal of opportunity with the number of units built in England and the amount of people moving from traditional built construction to timber frame,” he discloses. “We began that journey by bringing two new members onto the business development team and then another person onto the contracts team, all out of the Northwest, around Warrington and the Manchester area – we felt it made sense geographically, as there’s a huge head of population, a shortfall in housing delivery and a focus in terms of different regional strategies for growing residential numbers over the next five years.
“It’s a fantastic base and a foot hold from where we can grow the wider strategy around England. In a tough market, I’m pleased with the work that’s been done there and we’re already picking up repeat business. I think that’s testament that we’re choosing to work with good companies who appreciate the quality and service that Deeside can deliver. By having boots on the ground in Warrington, we’re able to help our customers forward-plan before their project even begins, so they reap the true benefits of building with timber frame later down the line. Traditional construction moves much slower than offsite manufactured timber frame, and so there’s a learning curve for people who are not used to our process, and how quickly homes can be erected. This impacts follow-on trades and overall project management, so it’s essential that our team is available to support each project, and our clients reap the commercial benefits.
It’s highly important to balance our thriving customer relationships with revenue targets, whilst maintaining our Scottish heritage, because Deeside has been trading for over 40 years and we’ve really worked hard to position ourselves as the timber framer of choice. We want to grow a successful business that trades in England for 40 years too. It’s about the people, the products, the processes, and doing everything right to leave a legacy that has a positive impact.”