About Merit

The story began in a garden shed...

The story of the Merit Group began nearly 40 years ago in a humble shed in the back garden of our CEO Roy Ashford, offering partitions and suspended ceiling services to the commercial sector.  This swiftly led to the inception of Merit Office Installations building lasting relationships with many premium office furniture manufacturers and carrying out office fit-outs throughout London and the UK.

Operating from our premises in the historic Chatham Dockyard, the 1990’s saw the introduction of our commercial moves service allowing us to use our expertise, understanding and experience within the office environment to service the internal and external relocation of our clients.

Strengthening our service...

Cementing our place as a market leader within the office furniture industry we moved our business operations to the growing Medway City Estate.  Here, we were able to secure both a head office and several warehouses to accommodate the storage facilities we were beginning to offer our clients as part of their office installation and relocation projects.

As the millennium approached, the awareness of the commercial impact on our environment became understandably heightened and we concentrated on making our business operations as sustainable as possible.  We introduced our refurbishment and restoration service to enable our clients to prolong the lifecycle of their office furniture by carrying out reconfigurations, respraying and repairs.  We concentrated our efforts on establishing strict recycling and reuse procedures for all packaging disposals and furniture clearance projects.
 

 

Extending the portfolio...

We were delighted to move to our current premises in 2016, consolidating 8 individual warehouses onto one site offering over 300,000 square foot of secure warehousing and 5000 square foot of modern office space for our management, operations and administration teams.  Our premises provide the distribution hub for our fleet of over 40 vehicles as well accommodating a recycling plant and refurbishment workshop to host our sustainable operations.

By 2017, we had developed a solid infrastructure, gaining ISO 9001 status as well as other industry accreditations paving the way to expand the Merit Group to welcome industry experts to launch divisions that complement Merit Office Installations. Whilst joint Managing Directors Jamie and Ricky Ashford along with the CEO Roy Ashford manage the vision and hold overall responsibility of the Merit Group, both Jamie and Ricky remain committed to leading Merit Office Installations and ensuring the service excellence our clients deserve.
 

 

Becoming a group...

Each division is led by a specialist in their field who bring many years of invaluable experience.  They have the autonomy to lead their divisions to success with the support of the group's experience, stability, resources and infrastructure.  The ‘family’ environment that was created by our CEO remains steadfast and all our divisions operate harmoniously and work with each other to achieve the service excellence that underpins the Merit Group’s business operations.

We are extremely proud of the reputation Merit has earnt throughout the years by providing our clients with tailored solutions and all the divisions of the Merit Group are committed to cultivating this ethos.


The Merit Group looks forward to an exciting future for all our stakeholders to enjoy!