Australia’s home building industry mourns the loss of a one of its greats this week, with the passing of West Australian builder Len Buckeridge. Source: Timberbiz
Originating from humble beginnings, the self-made industry leader successfully built the Buckeridge Group of Companies (BGC) from the ground up, which today employs more than 4000 people.
From a desire to create low cost housing, BGC rose to become the largest home builders in the nation, topping the HIA Housing 100 in 2012-13 with 3400 commencements.
Much of the company’s success was due to the vision of Len Buckeridge in creating a vertically integrated group that manufactured the building products that went into these dwellings.
BGC has also been responsible for a number of Perth’s iconic buildings, including the recently completed state-of-the-art concert and sports venue, the Perth Arena.
Len Buckeridge was renowned for this forthright approach to addressing bureaucratic or industrial hurdles to delivering housing to the community, regularly standing up for the industry in the face of adversity.
On top of the workload in running a successful company, he also found the time to serve the industry as a councillor in the HIA Western Australia Division from 1985 to 1991 and was also a member of the HIA National Home Building Council.
The achievements of Len Buckeridge and commitment to the broader housing industry were recognised with him being awarded the HIA Sir Phillip Lynch Award for outstanding service to Australian housing in 1993, and the HIA Ron Sears Citation for excellence in the WA Housing Industry in 2004.
The housing industry extends its sincere condolences to the Buckeridge family on their loss.
