Family business expansion provides ‘paw-some’ opportunity for Blyth Star Enterprises

The Doggy Day Care Centre, which launched in Morpeth in 2018, has appointed Blyth Star Enterprises’ Woodwork Department to complete all of the carpentry works at its soon-to-launch unit on Blyth’s Riverside Trading Estate.

More readily comparable to a children’s nursery than a centre for pets, the five-star rated centre is now the UK’s second largest provider of day care services for dogs, with a team of 30 full and part-time staff caring for up to 300 animals per day across its locations.

Having already established a layout for the proposed centre at Blyth based on the success of its counterparts in Pegswood, Alnwick and Whitley Bay, Andrew and Jenny Cairns – the husband and wife team behind The Doggy Day Care Centre – set about trying to find local contractors who could bring their vision to life.

Jenny said: “What we wanted this time around when we started looking for tradespeople to help get the Blyth site up and running was to find a company that we could establish a long-term working partnership with, who could support us with the initial build, but also any maintenance work we needed going forward.

“When we first heard about the Woodwork Department at Blyth Star, we immediately knew that we wanted to find out more.

“We were just blown away by what we saw. The staff and service users were all so knowledgeable and so lovely and we loved the idea that instead of just hiring a contractor, our work could support a charity and really give something back to the community. It just felt right.”

Established in 1987, Blyth Star Enterprises is a specialist provider of living support and day services for individuals living with complex mental health needs and learning disabilities.

Neil Hedley, day services operations manager, said: “The project is by far the biggest commercial assignment that the Woodwork Department has ever taken on.

“While the work in itself is quite simple, the scale of the project has seen the entire team of staff and service users engaged in the production of indoor and outdoor fencing, dog beds, pet-safe play equipment and feeding trays.”