'Builders' village' will be created by Carvers after fire

Fire-ravaged Carvers Building Supplies will be reconstructed and expanded with a "builders' village" including experts in different services and new jobs, it has been announced.

Managing director Henry Carver has revealed plans for a new building that will be rented out to different experts such as tile specialists. Work on the new building will follow the completion of a rebuilt warehouse at the Littles Lane site that will allow vans to drive straight up to the products on offer.

Mr Carver hopes to be up and running by Christmas.

The company is doing well again after a fire that started in a wood burning stove destroyed its old warehouse and huge quantities of stock in February.

Mr Carver will install sprinklers in sections of the rebuilt warehouse in order to immediately dowse any flammable stock should another fire ever break out.

After the new warehouse is built plans will progress for another building measuring 196ft by 114ft to house the builders' village.

Mr Carver, aged 53, said: "We're going to have all sorts of specialists. There's going to be somewhere for the likes of a paint specialist, a tile specialist, a PVC specialist and so on.

"There will be four or five specialists and we will be the landlord. It's going to mean new jobs. I want it all under one roof so people don't have to go anywhere else.

"I never want to go through the sort of experience we had with the fire ever again.

"But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

The fire also destroyed the company's offices and shop but a giant temporary warehouse and shop has been set up and is now open meaning that Carvers is trading again as normal.

Around 200 people work for Carvers Building Supplies which has been in Wolverhampton for 116 years. The company has another site in Neachells Lane, Wednesfield, where operations were transferred during the demolition of the burned out warehouse.

By Daniel Wainwright