Roofers celebrate 40 years of keeping the rain out

CommunityGeneral News ArticleHuman InterestPress Release

A team of Cornwall flat roof specialists is marking four decades of keeping the rain out of buildings around the UK.

JR Flat Roofing is perhaps Cornwall’s most successful roofing company with contracts ranging from protecting high-profile coastal hotels to topping-off grand locations for JD Wetherspoon and refurbishing service station roofs all over the UK – not to mention keeping the rain and wind out of scores of domestic properties around Cornwall.

The firm was chosen to re-roof Richmond’s Poppy Factory — the building where remembrance poppies have been made since 1922 to provide rehabilitation and employment for wounded service people.

This is apt because the firm was founded in 1983 by John Rogers who was well known for his incredible life story. Having grown up in challenging circumstances, he side-stepped a life of crime to join the UK Armed Forces and turn his life around.

Having served in the Parachute Regiment he set up the roofing business that would grow to become highly successful. Today, 11 years after his loss to illness, it is still being driven by three of his children; Nick, Phil and Marion while his other son, Adam, is a commercial airline pilot.

The big-hearted firm continues to support the plight of UK service veterans and gives to a range of charities. Recently JR Flat Roofing won the roofing work contract for YMCA in Penzance and has helped the charity save £10,000 for the roof project which will begin soon.

The YMCA is a charity that houses vulnerable young adults, a cause close to the hearts of those at JR Flat Roofing as John Rogers was a war baby who grew up in children’s homes.

Even in commercial activities, the firm shows its human side — when it recently built three houses in Cornwall, it named them in memory of three teenage boys, Josh, George and Harry, who were lost in tragic circumstances in 2018 while the terrace they form, Templars Terrace, is stamped with the nickname of a marine veteran who is close to the family. They are now building a fourth house which overlooks the three houses which will be named Chy Justice.

While JR Flat Roofing has firmly earned its colours as a UK national provider, it has remained true to its Cornish roots. The firm has fresh plans to build a new office at Scorrier’s West Cornwall Business Park alongside developing other domestic and commercial buildings they will offer for lease and sale elsewhere.

“Time flies but in the last 10 years the company has grown stronger and achieved so much,” said Marion Rogers, JR Roofing’s office manager.

“Our team has grown from a single office run by just me to five of us today. We have a highly-trained and qualified workforce and our commercial portfolio has grown from strength to strength with contracts all over the UK including many large contractors and the majority of our work being in London and the Home Counties.

“We couldn’t have done it without our staff who are an invaluable asset and are a key element to the company’s success. We have a great team now and are very proud to say it is like a family. This is why we were awarded the Silver Investors in People award.

“When I look back on the 40 years since Dad set up the business and how far it has come in just the last 10, I’m really proud that we can focus on the fact that, for all our national success, our staff are Cornwall-based and the money all comes back to the county at the end of the day.

“I think Dad would have been proud. Furthermore, recent world events have made running a business difficult but we have come through it and grown from strength to strength.”

Roofers celebrate 40 years of keeping the rain out