Family Business United is delighted to announce that Terry Peck has been recognised for a lifetime spent building Capital Roofing and giving back to the community with a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award. Terry Peck, Managing Director of Capital Roofing Co Ltd, has been recognised at this year's Family Business United Lifetime Achievement Awards, honouring a career spent building one of the UK's most respected family-run roofing contractors. Terry has dedicated his working life to Capital Roofing, based in Bexley, growing it through decades of hard work, determination and visionary leadership into a business renowned across the industry for its quality, integrity and commitment to excellence. His nomination points to a clear and consistent thread running through that career: a genuine passion for the roofing industry, combined with a real ability to mentor and inspire the next generation of people coming into it. That combination has shaped Capital Roofing into a business that places equal importance on its employees, customers and suppliers, rather than treating any one of them as secondary to commercial success. Terry's unwavering commitment to maintaining the highest standards has, in turn, earned the company an outstanding reputation within the roofing trade and underpinned its continued growth. Beyond the business itself, Terry has always believed in giving back to the community around him. He has supported numerous charitable initiatives over the years and has personally sponsored a wide range of local sports, including boxing clubs, marathon events, Bexley Football Club and other grassroots football teams. That support for young people and local community organisations has, by every account, had a lasting and meaningful impact well beyond the roofing industry itself. In recognition of that charitable work and community service, Terry was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 2015, an honour that reflects his dedication to helping others quite separately from the success of his business. Those who nominated Terry point to a combination of vision, resilience, generosity and family values that has created a legacy reaching far beyond turnover or growth figures. His leadership has shaped Capital Roofing into a thriving family business while inspiring those around him through his integrity, his commitment to doing things properly, and his consistent willingness to support both his industry and the wider community. Terry Peck's recognition reflects a career built on two things happening at once: a family roofing business grown the right way over decades, and a community around Bexley that has felt the benefit of his generosity for just as long.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Mark Rutter, Co-Founder and Chairman of Open Study College, has been recognised as part of this year's Family Business United Lifetime Achievement Awards, honouring nearly two decades spent turning an ambitious start-up into one of the UK's leading online education providers. Mark co-founded Open Study College in 2007, recognising early on the opportunity to make high quality education more accessible and affordable through flexible online learning. In the early years he was involved in every aspect of building the organisation, from developing the business model and establishing partnerships to creating a culture centred on learners, quality and innovation. That groundwork laid the foundations for sustained growth. Under Mark's leadership, the business has grown from a start-up into a nationally recognised online education provider, now supporting more than 150,000 learners across over 250,000 course enrolments, built on an outstanding reputation for quality, accessibility and learner support. Colleagues describe Mark as approachable, commercially astute and genuinely passionate about creating opportunities for others. He has fostered a culture built on integrity, innovation and accountability, empowering leadership teams to take ownership while remaining actively engaged in setting the business's strategic direction. His entrepreneurial vision saw the potential of online learning long before it became mainstream, and he backed that belief with real investment, at a time when it was far from a safe bet. In 2018, Mark handed the role of Chief Executive to his daughter and co-founder, Samantha Rutter-Bryant, moving into the role of Chairman while continuing to provide strategic guidance and ensuring the business stayed focused on innovation and sustainable growth. Mark has long believed that education should be a force for social mobility, creating opportunities for people regardless of their background, age or circumstances. That philosophy has shaped a business model built around removing traditional barriers to learning for working professionals, parents, career changers and those returning to education after many years away from it. That same belief in giving back extends into the local community. Open Study College donates to Birmingham based Help Harry Help Others Cancer Charity for every enrolment the business receives, a cause the Rutter family describe as close to their hearts, alongside a wider culture of charitable fundraising and community engagement across the organisation. Those who nominated Mark point to a leadership style defined by humility and authenticity, one focused on developing future leaders and creating an environment where people are trusted to innovate and take ownership, so that the organisation's success is shared rather than resting on any one individual. On his nomination, Mark said: "When Sam and I founded the business, our ambition was simple: to make education more accessible and give people the opportunity to change their lives through learning. I never imagined how many learners we would go on to support or the impact the business would have over the years. I have always believed that education has the power to transform lives, and I remain immensely proud of what we have achieved together." Mark Rutter's recognition reflects nearly two decades spent proving that a flexible, learner-focused business model could scale nationally, while handing leadership to the next generation of his own family without ever losing sight of why the business was founded in the first place.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Gerald Bloom, has received a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of a lifetime, quite literally, spent building British manufacturing businesses from nothing. Gerald's story does not begin in plastics at all. He grew up the youngest of three brothers in a family built around Bloom's, a clothing company founded by his tailor grandfather, Loo Bloom. Gerald spent a year learning the trade at the high end clothing house Aquascutum in London, fully expecting to return to the family firm. But with his grandfather, his father and two older brothers already running the show, there was little room for a younger son's ideas. Gerald came to a conclusion that would define the rest of his working life: it was not a good idea for one family to all live off a single business. So he set out to build his own. He placed an advert in the local paper and talked his way onto the factory floor of a plastics company, running night shifts and learning every machine and process the business had. It was also where he learned, from a boss with a memorably poor way of treating people, exactly how not to run a team. That experience, he says, is what pushed him to go it alone. In 1961, with a small bank loan, Gerald converted a set of old horse stables off Birmingham's Broad Street into a factory of around 1,000 square feet, building much of his own equipment from scratch. He named the business Midland Industrial Plastics. What began with tinted Perspex sun visors and street lighting covers for local manufacturers grew, factory by factory, from Aston to Walsall to an 80,000 square foot site, and eventually to Stourport, as MIP became a major supplier to the trucking and then the automotive industry. Along the way, Gerald talked his way into designing and prototyping an entire truck interior for Leyland when nobody else believed a Birmingham plastics man could do it. He pioneered new materials and processes in the UK, including a wood and polypropylene composite called Woodstock and an injected foam process for door casings, work that ultimately made MIP a trusted supplier to Land Rover and Range Rover, producing components for a thousand vehicles a week. He talked his way past a legendarily gruff purchasing director at British Leyland to win an order on the spot. He steered the company through the collapse of British Leyland as a client in 1975, through the recession that followed, and through the tightening demands of just in time manufacturing. And in between all of that, in 1965, he found time to win the RAC British Rally Driving Championship. By 1998, MIP employed around a thousand people and turned over close to ninety million pounds. Recognising, in his own words, the importance of knowing your place and your capabilities in business, Gerald sold the company to the American industrial group Textron, seeing off more than one insincere buyer along the way with the lesson that a deal is only done when the money is in the bank. Most people would have called that a career. Gerald called it a beginning. Alongside his long time colleague Peter Raby, who had joined him nearly thirty years earlier, he started again from a factory in Droitwich, deliberately choosing a name nobody would forget: Big Bear. More than 25 years on, Big Bear Plastic Products employs around 80 people and is now, fittingly, a family business in its own right, run by Gerald's daughter Emma Hockley, who has led it through, among other things, the pandemic. What comes through every account of Gerald, from colleagues, customers and his own family, is not just the scale of what he built, but how he built it. He is described, without exception, as honourable, a man whose word is his bond. He is generous, having rescued his own brother's business, another automotive supplier from administration and turned it into a success. He is famously organised, never without the diary in which every promise, his own and everyone else's, is written down and kept. And he remains, even approaching his 90th year, restlessly ambitious for the business, still to be found on the shop floor most days, usually in a pristine suit and tie under his hi-vis. Gerald has employed thousands of people across two businesses over more than sixty years, some of them for over thirty years apiece, and by every account you would struggle to find one of them with a bad word to say about him. He puts much of that down to a lesson he has tried to pass on throughout his career: that the quality of the result is equal to the quality of the instruction, and that clear, respectful communication will take you further in business, and in life, than almost anything else. From a converted stable off Broad Street to two major British manufacturing businesses, from the rally stages of 1965 to the boardrooms of Land Rover and Leyland, Gerald Bloom has spent a lifetime building, employing, mentoring and, above all, doing right by the people around him and is totally deserving of recognition and a worthy recipient of this year's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Matthew Pudney, a man whose career traces the entire journey from the post room to the boardroom has been awarded a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award. Matthew's career at Princebuild spans nearly four decades. He joined in 1988 in the administration of term maintenance contracts, and from the outset showed the work ethic and drive to improve things that would come to define his career, quickly rising to lead the company's Maintenance Division and overseeing the opening of multiple branches across East Anglia. Recognised early for his forward-thinking approach, he went on to develop Princebuild's bespoke IT systems, transforming how the Group operated, before heading up its IT and Communications Department and extending his influence into Branding and Marketing too. Matthew became a board member in 2000 and a shareholder in 2003, taking on responsibility for the Group's strategic direction and long-term growth. In 2025, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer, continuing the Pudney family's leadership of the business founded by Derek Asplin and Stuart Pudney, while guiding it into its next chapter. It is, by any measure, a remarkable journey: from an administrative role to CEO, built over nearly forty years of operational expertise and strategic vision, helping grow Princebuild into the respected, multi-disciplinary construction business it is today. Those who work with Matthew describe a leader defined by character rather than title, someone who genuinely embodies Princebuild's values of building, sharing and caring. He builds strong foundations, whether that's robust systems, high-performing teams or long-term strategy. He shares knowledge and opportunity generously, creating a culture of openness and trust where directors support one another rather than compete. And above all, he cares, leading with integrity and humility and a real sense of responsibility to the people who make the business what it is. That sense of responsibility reaches well beyond Princebuild's own walls. Matthew was the creative force behind Blingo, a black-tie charity evening organised with the NSPCC Peterborough Business Support Group that has become a flagship fixture in the local calendar, raising over £100,000 for causes including the NSPCC, Macmillan Cancer Support and Helping Our Ukrainian Friends since it began. He has personally taken part in Princebuild's annual 10K Challenge for the past ten years, an event that raised £32,000 for Helping Our Ukrainian Friends in 2024 alone with over a hundred participants. And when that charity needed aid delivered directly, Matthew didn't simply write a cheque, he travelled to Poland as part of a convoy of Princebuild vans to help deliver it himself. Matthew has also played a defining role in guiding Princebuild through the transition from its founding generation, honouring the legacy of Derek Asplin and Stuart Pudney while shaping a modern, forward-thinking business fit for what comes next, a balance of heritage and progress that isn't easy to strike. Combined with his recognition as Business Person of the Year in 2024, his story is a genuine embodiment of what this award exists to celebrate. In his own words: "Princebuild has always been about building, sharing and caring, values set by those before us and carried forward by an incredible team. I've been fortunate to be part of that journey." Congratulations on receiving this year's Lifetime Achievement Award Matthew Pudney.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Elizabeth Rose has been awarded a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her 25 years spent shaping not just a marketing function, but the very identity of a family business. Elizabeth has been part of Rose Calendars, a family business founded all the way back in 1908, since 2001, and for the whole of that time she has held the title of Marketing Manager. But that title has never really captured what she does. Over a quarter of a century she has been the company's voice on customer relationships, communications, product development, sales support and, in many ways, the public face of the Rose Calendars brand itself. One of Elizabeth's most significant achievements has been helping to establish promotional calendars as a serious, effective tool within the B2B marketplace, not a seasonal afterthought, but a genuinely valuable piece of a company's marketing armoury. Through consistent trade communication and direct engagement with distributors, resellers and corporate customers, she has spent 25 years making that case, and making it well. Along the way she has built the kind of relationships, with customers, sales agents, suppliers and colleagues, that simply cannot be manufactured quickly. Many of them have endured for decades, built on the trust that comes from someone who genuinely listens and consistently delivers. Colleagues describe Elizabeth as approachable and personable, but also exacting, with an attention to detail that has helped maintain the quality and professionalism of the Rose Calendars brand throughout her tenure. She has adapted the business through enormous change in the calendar industry, embracing digital marketing and new customer expectations while holding on to the personal, relationship-led approach that has always defined the company. As both a family member and a long-serving member of the team, she has been a source of continuity through all of it, helping the business evolve without ever losing sight of what makes it a family business in the first place. Elizabeth's influence reaches well beyond marketing campaigns and into the wider community Rose Calendars is part of. Since 2024 she has been a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, strengthening the company's ties to the wider printing and publishing trade. She has been the driving force behind Rose Calendars' long-standing support for St Helena Hospice in Colchester, turning corporate sponsorship into genuine staff participation through events like this year's Roses for Remembrance gathering at Beth Chatto Gardens and a company Bake Off that raised funds during the quieter part of the calendar season. She has also built a genuinely practical relationship with Sailship, a local organisation supporting adults with learning difficulties and mental health needs, ensuring the company's waste wooden pallets are given a second life as furniture, planters and fencing made and sold by Sailship in support of its work. And since 2021 she has championed Rose Calendars' Carbon Capture partnership with the Woodland Trust, a scheme through which the company and its customers have now supported new native woodland planting equivalent to around four football pitches, work Elizabeth has backed up in person, planting saplings herself on a Woodland Trust planting day in Nottingham. What makes Elizabeth's 25 years remarkable is not simply their length, but what she has built within them. She has shaped how Rose Calendars talks to its customers, how it presents itself within its industry, and how it shows up in its community, all while remaining as enthusiastic about the business today as she was when she started. In her own words, it has been a journey she has genuinely enjoyed every step of. Congratulations to our 2026 Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Elizabeth Rose.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that John J Smith Senior has been awarded a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of a life spent quietly, devotedly, in service of others, at some of the hardest moments a family can face. John left school early to join the family business and learn the trade of a monumental mason, working with stone long before he ever expected to spend his life caring for people. Thirty years ago he took the decision to start offering funeral services alongside that trade, and from that day he has, by his own family's account, worked twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Not because he had to, but because he saw every family who came to him as his own. In and around Colchester, John is simply known and trusted. Families call on him because they know that whatever their loved one needs, and whatever hour of the day or night they need it, he will be there in person. He will go to a family's home himself, any time, so that they can see him and know he is looking after the person they have lost as though they were his own. He stays with families from the moment of loss through the funeral itself and well beyond it, and he will go to whatever length is needed to see a family's final wishes carried out properly. That same generosity reaches out into the wider community. John has supported the local hospice and local bowling clubs, and has built genuine friendships with countless families and businesses across the area over the years. True to the spirit of the family business world, he has always been quick to recommend and support other local family firms, the florists, the printers, the coffin makers, the people who, like him, quietly keep a community running. What makes John's story so striking is the scale of what it has asked of him. He has taken no holidays and no real days off, because his community has always come first. His own family will tell you, honestly, that they have missed out on time with him because of his devotion to the families he serves. Few people give that much of themselves, for that long, and ask for so little in return. In his own words: "I have loved every moment and would not have changed my life for the world." Congratulations to John J Smith Senior on a well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Nigel Gardener, a man who, at an age when most people are thinking about winding down, chose to start all over again and has been awarded a 2026 Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award. Nigel joined RSP UK Suction Excavators at its formation in 2016, at the age of 63, bringing with him almost four decades in heavy plant and trenchless technology, including many years as Customer Service Director at his previous company. He didn't join for a job. He joined to build something alongside his son Lloyd and daughter-in-law Charlie, together with Jens, Karl and Marina, the founding team from RSP Germany, people he had grown close to over many years. When RSP UK started, it had no UK trading history and nothing to point a customer towards. What it had was Nigel, and more than thirty years of relationships he had earned the hard way, by looking after people properly. He opened every one of those relationships up, introducing Charlie and Lloyd personally to contacts he had spent a career building, and vouching for them. Many of those customers, family businesses themselves, took a chance on a brand new company because the man they already trusted was standing next to it. That transfer of trust is the reason the business got off the ground, and it is not something that can be bought or replicated. From there Nigel set the standard the whole company still works to today, in how a customer is spoken to, what the business will and won't promise, and how quickly it responds when someone is on site with a problem. As RSP UK grew into three brands and four divisions, he made a deliberate choice to step back from the front line and into business support, handing over relationships he had spent decades building to the people he had trained to hold them. Very few people give away their own life's work willingly. Fewer do it as generously as Nigel has. Those who work with him describe someone who is meticulous almost to a fault, the sort of man who treats arriving on time as already being late, and who will find the detail in a document that everybody else skimmed past. He is relentless, first to arrive at an exhibition to help build the stand and one of the last still finding something worth doing at the end of a long day, at 73 years old, no matter how many times his colleagues have told him to slow down. And he is generous with everything he knows, having spent 47 years building an understanding of heavy plant and trenchless methods that he has never once guarded, giving it freely to colleagues, junior staff, customers' operators, and even people from competing firms who simply asked him a question. Beyond the business, Nigel has spent his career raising standards across the wider industry, championing proper operator training and competence, and helping establish RSP UK as the UK's only dedicated suction excavator training centre. Internationally, he was instrumental in introducing trenchless technology into the Asian market at a time when there was real reluctance to invest in it, work that helped secure adoption by one of the largest authorities in Malaysia and left communities there with safer streets and less disruptive utility work as a result. Perhaps Nigel's most lasting achievement, though, is not measured in machines or turnover at all, but in people. Ten years on, three generations of his family now work at RSP UK: Nigel himself, his sons Lloyd and Paul, daughter-in-law Charlie, and all four of his grandchildren. Every one of them has earned their place, and every one of them works to the same standard he set: turn up early, turn out properly, get the detail right, and put the customer's experience ahead of your own convenience. Nigel has spent these last ten years methodically making himself unnecessary, handing over his customers and training the people who now look after them, so that the business can stand on its own without him. Nigel retires in September this year, at RSP UK's tenth anniversary celebration, bringing to a close a 47 year career that began before trenchless technology was even a recognised discipline, and leaving behind both a company and an industry in better shape than the ones he found.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that John Lawson, a man who has spent seven decades building one of the great independent family businesses of the South and East of England has been awarded a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award. John's story begins with the loss of his father in 1941, and in 1952, at just 20 years old and while completing his National Service, John lost his mother too. He came into the business that year with no one left to guide him and no real background in the timber and fencing trade. He learned the ropes from the men already working there, who taught him everything from costing a job to erecting a run of fencing themselves. It was in those early, difficult years, hearing first hand from his new colleagues about the hardships his mother had faced trying to keep the business going through the war, that John's character and his lifelong view of what a business owes its people were truly formed. From that foundation, John built. Not content with growing a successful timber and builders' merchant, in 1979 he took on a failing concrete business and turned it into Supreme Ltd, which became the leading UK manufacturer of concrete posts and lintels before its sale in 2006. Meanwhile the core merchant business, now in its third generation of family management, has grown into the Lawsons Group, encompassing AVS Fencing, Timber and Landscaping, Oxford Fencing, Witham Timber, The Landscape Centre and Briants of Risborough. Today that means 35 branches, nearly 700 staff, a fleet of 135 vehicles, and revenue that has doubled in the last eight years to £165 million, all built on a company John himself took charge of in 1952 with nothing to guide him but the example of the people around him. What has always set Lawsons apart is the principle John built it on: that businesses exist to serve people, not the other way round. That belief, rooted in the family's Quaker heritage, runs through everything from profit share and staff bonuses to how the company treats its customers and suppliers. It is why Lawsons became the first, and remains the only, builders' merchant in the country to be awarded the Gold Standard Fair Tax Mark, a clear signal of the responsible conduct John has always insisted upon. It is also why the business operates on what the family calls a triple bottom line of profit, people and planet, with every branch holding its own discretionary fund to support worthwhile causes in its own community, alongside a central charitable fund for longer term commitments. John's own words capture the philosophy behind all of it: "Principles walk in front of you. They prepare your way." Seventy years on from taking the reins as a young man with no roadmap, John Lawson has built the largest independent builders' merchant in the South and East of England, and, more importantly, a business where staff feel valued, respected and secure, a culture shaped entirely by his own humanity and sense of duty. What sealed the win as Supreme Champion for 2026 in the eyes of the judges is what John did most recently, and it is, in many ways, the single act that defines everything he stands for. In April 2026, the Lawson family made the decision to transfer John's majority 51% shareholding in the business into an independent trust. Let us be clear about what that means. It was a gift. No money changed hands. There was no sale, no payout to the Lawson family. This was not a takeover and it was not a restructure. It was a 94 year old man handing his own ownership back to the business he built, so that the values he has spent seventy years instilling, how Lawsons treats its people, its independence, its commitment to the communities it serves, are now written permanently into the legal structure of the company. No future investor, no private equity firm, no owner to come will ever be able to change what Lawsons stands for. John made sure of that himself. As John put it in his own words: "Family businesses are not as other companies. The mutual responsibility and interaction between the family and the business fosters relationships and lifelong friendships." Few people have lived that truth as fully, or acted on it as decisively, as John Lawson. For a lifetime of building, of principle, and, in the end, of giving it all back John Lawson is thoroughly deserving of recognition in these awards, and for taking the Family Business Lifetime Achievement Overall Supreme Champion for 2026.

Family Business United is delighted to announce that Philip Miller MBE, a man who has spent fifty years turning a small seafront site into one of the best loved family destinations in the country, has been awarded a Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award. Philip's story is rooted entirely in Southend-on-Sea, where he was born, raised, and still lives today. He grew up in a council house and left school with no formal qualifications, starting out as a young boy working at the old Kursaal amusement park. Those early years taught him lessons that have never left him: the value of hard work, of taking responsibility, and of treating people well. In 1976, Philip's family bought a small amusement site for just four thousand pounds. Fifty years on, that modest investment has grown into Adventure Island, one of the UK's most recognised family theme parks, welcoming millions of visitors and, alongside Sealife Adventure and the wider Stockvale Group, employing more than a thousand people at the height of summer season. Under Philip's leadership the business has never stood still, continually adding new attractions, developing Sealife Adventure, and reinvesting in Southend year after year. What sets Philip apart is that, after half a century at the helm, he still shows up every single day. He walks the park, talks to guests and staff, and makes himself genuinely visible in a business that could easily let its chairman disappear into the boardroom. He has recently taken to social media with real enthusiasm, and his behind the scenes videos have earned him millions of views, regular requests for selfies around the park, and a nomination for Theme Park Personality of the Year. Philip's commitment to people runs right through the business. Eight members of his family now work across the Stockvale companies, and he has taken care to mentor and guide each of them, making sure the values that built the business in 1976 are the same ones carrying it forward today. He funds university degrees for members of his team, personally runs leadership sessions, and has brought in speakers including a former Chief Constable, a Paralympic champion, an Olympic swimming champion and an England Test cricketer to inspire his staff. He has also introduced free chaplaincy and counselling services, so every employee has access to support whenever they need it. That commitment to creating opportunity, particularly for young people and those who might otherwise struggle to find work, was recognised nationally with The Queen's Award for Enterprise for Promoting Opportunity through Social Mobility, one of the highest honours available to a British business. Philip's contribution reaches well beyond the park gates. In 1998 he was a founding member of the Southend Hospital Charitable Foundation, which has since raised millions of pounds for equipment and facilities beyond NHS funding, work that saw him awarded an MBE in 2002 for services to charity and the community. In 2018, despite a genuine fear of heights, he completed a charity abseil for the hospital. He helped establish the Citizen of Southend Awards to celebrate local people who go above and beyond, and this year, to mark Adventure Island's 50th anniversary, he is giving away 300 Golden Annual Passes to guests and local charities in thanks for five decades of support. Through all of it, colleagues and family describe the same thing: success has never changed him. He remains approachable, down to earth, and endlessly curious about how to make the business better for the people in it and around it. His enthusiasm, by every account, has never faded. Generations of families have grown up with memories made at Adventure Island, and generations of employees have built careers there, because of one man's fifty year refusal to sit still. Congratulations to Philip Miller MBE on his 2026 Family Business Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Family Business United has announced the ten winners of this year's Lifetime Achievement Awards, celebrating decades of dedication, integrity and community spirit across the UK's family business community, with John Lawson of the Lawsons Group named the overall Supreme Champion for 2026. Ten Winners, One Shared Thread This year's winners span industries from manufacturing and construction to theme parks, funeral care, distance learning and roofing, but each was recognised for the same underlying qualities: building something that lasts, treating people properly, and giving back to the communities around them. The 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award winners are: Presnted Presented in absentia - Mark Rutter, Wes Arbuckle and Terry Peck. Pictured from left to right: John Smith Senior, Elizabeth Rose, Philip Miller MBE, John Lawson, Gerald Bloom, Nigel Gardener, Matthew Pudney, Paul Andrews. Gerald Bloom, who built two major British manufacturing businesses, Midland Industrial Plastics and Big Bear Plastic Products, over more than 60 years. Philip Miller MBE, who has led Adventure Island in Southend-on-Sea for 50 years since his family's original four thousand pound investment. John Lawson, who has spent seven decades building the Lawsons Group into the largest independent builders' merchant in the South and East of England. Nigel Gardener, who joined RSP UK Suction Excavators at 63 to help found the business alongside his family, and retires this year after a 47 year career. John J Smith Senior, recognised for 30 years of round the clock funeral care for families in and around Colchester. Elizabeth Rose, who has spent 25 years shaping the marketing and community presence of Rose Calendars. Matthew Pudney, who has risen from an entry level administrative role in 1988 to Chief Executive of Princebuild. Terry Peck, Managing Director of Capital Roofing, recognised for decades building the business and supporting the Bexley community. Mark Rutter, Co-Founder and Chairman of Open Study College, recognised for turning a 2007 start-up into a national online education provider. Wes Arbuckle, of Linian, recognised for his own lasting contribution to the family business he has helped build. John Lawson Named Overall Supreme Champion Of this exceptional field, the judges named John Lawson as the overall Supreme Champion for 2026. The decision followed his decision earlier this year to transfer his majority 51% shareholding in the Lawsons Group into an independent trust, a gift rather than a sale, ensuring the values he has built over more than 70 years are now protected permanently within the company's structure. Paul Andrews, Founder and CEO of Family Business United, said the calibre of this year's nominees made the judges' task a genuinely difficult one. "Every single year I think we can't possibly top the stories we've heard before, and every single year the family business community proves me wrong." "What struck the judges this year wasn't just the scale of what these individuals have built, it was how consistently they've done it while putting their people, their customers and their communities first." On the winners as a group, he added: "These ten people represent everything that makes the family business sector special." "They are exceptional and inspirational individuals. They've built businesses that provide livelihoods for thousands of families, and they've done it with a set of values that simply doesn't show up on a balance sheet, but it's the reason these businesses have lasted." "As for the overall winner, John's decision to place his own shareholding into trust for the future of the business, at 93 years old and asking for nothing in return, is about as clear a statement of what a family business owner can stand for as I've ever come across. The judges were unanimous that his story captured exactly what this award exists to celebrate." "Ten winners, ten very different businesses, and one shared story: family businesses built to last, by people who never stopped putting others first." Find out more about the Annual Family Business Lifetime Achievement Awards and consider entering a deserving individual here Check out the photo gallery from the 2026 Famly Business Lifetime Achievement Awards and National Family Business Dinner here:

Shepherd Neame licensees Julia and Michael Foxwell, who run The Old House at Home in Dormansland, are adding another award to their shelf after being crowned UK Community Sustainability Hero in the PubAid Community Pub Hero Awards 2026. The couple, who have run the village pub in Surrey since 2024, were invited to a prestigious awards ceremony at the House of Commons on Tuesday, September 8 after being nominated by East Surrey MP Claire Coutinho. They were one of 13 category winners from across the UK. The pub was recognised for its efforts to make the hospitality industry greener, with initiatives such as securing funding from the Surrey County Council Active Travel Programme to purchase a staff e-bike, install an e-bike charging point and operate a free public bike repair station. The couple also reuse coffee grounds as fertiliser, collect pet fur for birds to use as nesting material, turn spent beer into a natural slug deterrent, and the pub’s outdoor furniture is made using reclaimed scaffold boards and poles. The Old House at Home has already received numerous accolades, including the Sustainability Award at the BII National Innovation in Training Awards 2025 and Sustainable Pub of the Year at the Shepherd Neame Pub Awards 2026. The 2026 PubAid awards received a record number of nominations from MPs, highlighting growing recognition in Parliament of the role pubs play within their constituencies. East Surrey MP Claire Coutinho said: “The Old House at Home is a brilliant example of how a rural pub can combine community spirit with fresh thinking on sustainability." "From encouraging cycling and creating wildlife-friendly spaces to reducing waste, reusing materials and supporting local suppliers, Julia and the team have shown that practical changes can have a real impact.” PubAid Co-Founder Des O’Flanagan added: “The Old House at Home is a brilliant example of just how important pubs are to the communities they serve." "What they have achieved in Surrey, from making sustainability part of everyday pub life through active travel, waste reduction and practical environmental initiatives, shows that a great pub is about so much more than food and drink; it is a place that brings people together, supports those who need it and makes a real difference locally.” The Old House at Home Licensee Michael Foxwell said: “It was an absolute privilege to even get to the final, and to win was an absolute shock as the other pubs nominated also had great sustainability initiatives. We are proud to make a difference in the community and are celebrating the fact that small changes can make a big difference." “To be recognised on a national level was a truly memorable moment. The award belongs to not just The Old House at Home, but the whole community of Dormansland.” Shepherd Neame Director of Tenanted Pub Operations Greg Wallis said: “ "We are incredibly proud of Michael and Julia, and the whole team at The Old House at Home, for being recognised at the PubAid Community Pub Hero Awards." "Their efforts to put green initiatives at the heart of their business shows that it is possible to create more sustainable spaces in the hospitality industry, and their award for UK Community Sustainability Hero is a credit to the pub.” The PubAid Community Pub Hero Awards 2026 are sponsored by Diageo and supported by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group (APPBG). For more information about the awards, visit here.

A Staffordshire Moorlands cricket club has ended the sporting season on a high with news that JCB has renewed its support. The digger giant, which has two factories in the Cheadle, has pledged £3,000 over the next three years to help fund the club’s Junior Section and maintenance equipment at the Tean Road ground. Now in its 12th year, the funding is helping the club go from strength to strength. Club Chairman Steve Plant said: “The sponsorship funding will be used to buy new kit for our young players and to support our grounds team with new equipment to help maintain and improve our facilities." “After 12 years of support, we genuinely value the relationship with JCB and are very grateful for their continued commitment to the Club. It’s particularly pleasing that there are so many existing connections between JCB employees, their families and our Club, making the partnership feel very much like a local community relationship.” Cheadle Cricket Club has open training sessions every week, to which all are welcome, and is part of the English Cricket Board All Stars scheme which encourages children into the game. Steve added: “Our junior section ranges from Under 9s through to Under 19 level for boys and girls, and it has been another great summer with the Under 19, 17 ,15 and 11’s all winning their respective sections." “We also have five Saturday and Sunday senior sides playing at our grounds in Cheadle and Oakamoor. Our first team play in the Premier section of the North Staffs and South Cheshire League and this year has seen our second team successfully defend the NSSC Talbot Shield knockout competition.” The club is also home to a women’s softball team with over 25 players training every week and competing in a league and festivals across the area, while local schools also use the facilities over the summer. To find out more visit here.