Sunderland builder wins national award for Washington house

Kevin Meldrum of KM Builders and Groundworks has won a national prize at the Northern Building Excellence Awards 2020 for a property that he built in Fatfield.
By Ryan Smith
Published 28th Nov 2020, 06:00 BST
Updated 30th Nov 2020, 13:28 BST
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It’s the second time that the 55-year-old has picked up the award for Best Local Builder or Traditional Craftsperson after he won in 2012.

This year, he was nominated by Gary Crosby after he was impressed by Kevin’s work ethic when he was building a dream house for him and his family in Fatfield, Washington.

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Kevin, who has been in business for more than 20 years, told the Echo how much it means to him to win the award despite the ceremony being different due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Builder Kevin Meldrum with his award outside of the house he built.Builder Kevin Meldrum with his award outside of the house he built.
Builder Kevin Meldrum with his award outside of the house he built.
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He said: “It’s unbelievable, I can’t nominate myself so to be put forward and then to win it is great.

"It’s been different this year as it is normally a black tie event however Covid meant that it couldn’t go ahead but it was still nice to win.

"We’re a small team and I work on site all the time with them, however we all manage to work well together and any problems that we come across we always manage to survive.

Kevin was nominated by Gary Crosby after he built the house for him and his wife Letitia.Kevin was nominated by Gary Crosby after he built the house for him and his wife Letitia.
Kevin was nominated by Gary Crosby after he built the house for him and his wife Letitia.

"I’m so proud of what we do.”

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Gary, 52, explained that Kevin was able to bring his family’s dream to life and that they had full confidence in him during the build last year.

He commented: “We demolished an old property and had an architect design a brand new one.

"Kevin and his team were able to take the plans and basically bring our dream to life, he really managed to capture the vision of what we wanted.

"He never raised an issues and if there was a problem, he always had a solution.

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“It was just exceptional and we had full confidence in what he was doing, the whole build was just perfect.

"Our dreams were just on paper, he knew exactly what we wanted and he turned those dreams into a reality.

"It is fair to say that we now have our dream house and it’s all because of him and his team.”

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Related topics:WashingtonSunderland