Business History
  
THE FIRST 25 YEARS

The roots of the Severn Partnership philosophy can be traced to Richard Otto’s experiences growing up in South Africa, where every day the apartheid system challenged the basic concepts of personal respect and dignity.

As a result, the business he founded with Jonathon Walton was always going to be based on strong principles; a commitment to building lasting respectful relationships with clients and staff, a belief in the importance of a qualifications for all and a focus on professionalism in every aspect of the company’s operations.

Nigel Atkinson joined as a partner and later went on to establish a successful Chartered Land Survey practice specialising in legal boundary issues.

Richard Sims spent a number of years as a partner with specialist experience in civil engineering design and management before setting up a successful civil engineering design and management practice.

At this time the business became a limited company in order to cater for rapid growth and diversification into new markets.

Some members of the original team are still involved in applying the founding principles today. Richard’s wife Gill continues to make sure that the accounts add up and that suppliers and staff are paid on time, and works alongside Nick Blenkarn now Finance Director who started with the Company in 1992 as a Surveyor, from University College London.

Mark Combes started his survey career with the Company as an Assistant Surveyor in 1988 and recently took over as Managing Director from Richard Otto in September, 2007.

Despite stepping back from leading the company Richard is not yet ready to hang up his boots and continues as Director with specific responsibility for quality, standards and technical development.

He is also kept busy serving on the management and editorial board of the respected academic survey journal the Survey Review, as a council member and past Chairman of the Technical Committee of the UK Land and Hydrographic Survey Association and as the Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors delegate to the International Surveyors Federation’s Professional Standards and Practice, Cadastre and Land Management committees.

At Severn Partnership everyone is encouraged to develop their skills and qualifications. Many members of the current team joined with little or no experience and qualifications and are still with the company having completed degrees and become members of professional bodies.

Quality has always been central to the business and registration with BSI under ISO 9001 was achieved in 1992

The company has always recognised that its staff are its greatest asset and a natural progression was to achieve Investors in People recognition in 2000

The business was initially based in a single room at Jonathan Walton’s home, then moved quickly to a rented office in an old mill and finally settled in its current location in 1990, when the opportunity arose to buy and renovate a derelict Maltings in Bayston Hill, a quite village on the southern outskirts of Shrewsbury.

The principle of partnering with our clients for our mutual success has been tested and proved over many years and we are confident that next 25 years will be as successful as the first.

While the business is no longer structured as a formal partnership, the re-branding exercise to celebrate our 25th birthday acknowledges that while we may be best known as SEVERN, we still want to be recognised for our continuing adherence to the principle of PARTNERSHIP.