![\"Jack](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/95923675-ebc9-49ed-8bff-4e3b5ce351b2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cThus far in my life, I\u2019ve never taken a backward step,\u201d admitted a builder known for constructing \u00a315 million footballers\u2019 mansions after he had part of his business put into administration. <\/p>\n
Daniel Ashville, founder and director of Ashville Holdings, tried for months to refinance and sell Ashville Aggregates and Concrete, but was unable to do so. In February the business\u2019s main creditor called in administrators, leaving \u00a33.3 million of debts unlikely to be paid and 33 people without jobs. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat decision was probably nine months longer than it should have been,\u201d said Ashville, whose efforts to find a buyer for the business are detailed in the administrator\u2019s report. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me a long time to come to terms with it because, thus far in my life, I\u2019ve never taken a backward step. Everything has been forward, forward, more, more, more, more, and I\u2019d never actually sat back and looked at it. Sometimes you take a step back before you take a step forward.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ashville, 43, said he made sure all his former employees had jobs the \u201cnext morning\u201d in the industry. \u201cI still see all of them now, because the people who they went to work for, they will come into my depot and use our services.\u201d <\/p>\n
The aggregates company was founded by Ashville in 2016. He had worked in construction since 2006, largely focused on the renovations of upmarket homes and building mansions for celebrities such as Jack Wilshere, the former Arsenal player. <\/p>\n
After working on several basement renovation projects, Ashville decided to buy a lorry to remove the earth created from excavations and spotted an opportunity to sell this service to other businesses. <\/p>\n
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Jack Wilshere, the former Arsenal player<\/p>\n
DAVID PRICE\/ARSENAL FC\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
\u201cI drove the lorry myself because we didn\u2019t have enough work for a full-time driver,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I went to tip the earth, I realised that the same place where I tip the earth, that\u2019s where my supplier is buying the sand from. That\u2019s where they\u2019re buying the stone. I began to supply sandstone and aggregates to my own construction company.\u201d <\/p>\n
The administrators noted the company had traded successfully for several years and that it started to \u201crapidly expand\u201d to meet demand in 2022. This was largely through buying and leasing lorries and plant machines, which were bought through a connected asset holding company, Commercials. <\/p>\n
Ashville was forced to leave the builders\u2019 yard the company had been using near Heathrow in late 2023 after the landlord put up the rent, moving to a site across the road. To keep up with the work and allow aggregates to be delivered to the site in bulk, he decided to add a railhead. The administrators described this as an \u201cexpensive and time-consuming process which had a detrimental impact on the company\u2019s financial position\u201d.<\/p>\n
A buyer for the business was briefly in place, but pulled out. Ashville attempted to find another buyer but ran out of time.<\/p>\n
The closure of the business was announced on his YouTube channel in March, calling it the \u201cend of an era\u201d. While he admitted there had been internal errors that led to the collapse of the company, he also placed the blame in part on falling demand. Recent numbers from S&P Global purchasing managers\u2019 index (PMI) showed building in the UK fell in July<\/a> at the fastest pace since the early days of the pandemic.<\/p>\n Ashville admitted the business had become \u201can almighty big machine\u201d<\/p>\n Ashville acknowledged there was a need to streamline the wider business, which he said had become an \u201calmighty big machine\u201d. He said: \u201cI\u2019ve worked the last 18 months to trim it down back to something that\u2019s a lot more supple and agile and dynamic, because that was our strength for many years.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t look at it like, \u2018oh, you\u2019re making a business decision\u2019. They look at it like, \u2018oh, \u2018it\u2019s failed\u2019. Well, that\u2019s one way of looking at it but everything runs its course. That\u2019s the journey of entrepreneurship. Why am I doing something that doesn\u2019t make money? To prove what to who? If it doesn\u2019t make money, you\u2019ve got to stop doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n A former model, he started working in construction after dropping out of a sports science course at the University of North London. He saved money working as a personal trainer for professional cricketers and bought a three-bedroom house for \u00a3170,000 in 2003 in Canning Town, east London. <\/p>\n He said: \u201cI didn\u2019t want to stay in school, because I wanted to get out into the working world. I wanted to learn how to drive. I wanted to buy my own car. You have the distractions of trainers and tracksuits. I didn\u2019t come from a background where my mum could afford to do those things for me. So I wanted to get into the full-time working world as quickly as possible, so I could buy all the things that I thought I required.\u201d <\/p>\n After working on his first house, the value of the property went up and he was able to remortgage it and buy more properties. He continued to buy more properties until he was given his first \u201cmajor job\u201d in 2008 to refurbish a house in Streatham, south London. <\/p>\n Ashville\u2019s National Geographic series featured projects such as a Royal Caribbean cruise ship\u2019s Aqua Dome<\/p>\n DISNEY<\/p>\n He later started working on high-end residential properties in areas such as Harley Street and Knightsbridge. In 2012 he opened a showroom on the Kings Road in Chelsea, displaying fixtures for luxury homes as well as smart home features. The showroom has since closed. <\/p>\n \u2022 Inside the \u00a3250,000 a month footballers\u2019 mansion<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/17f33322-a24d-417b-9c0d-92605a2e230f.jpg\")
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