Belvoir has named husband and wife team Vaughan and Sally Schofield as its franchisees of the year.

The Belvoir network gathered at the Manchester Hilton to congratulate Vaughan and Sally Schofield, of Belvoir Wrexham.

Dorian Gonsalves, chief executive of Belvoir, praised the pair who experienced 21.4% organic growth in sales income in 2017, dramatically increased the size of their newly refurbished office and launched their own free monthly newspaper – The Wrexham Property News.

Vaughan is also a member of the network’s research and development group,

Gonsalves said: “Vaughan embraces and runs with all the ideas and suggestions that come from central office and is a worthy winner of the gold award for Belvoir franchise of the year.”

Schofield said: “We were very surprised to win, and absolutely delighted to have done so. At the end of the day, we don’t do this job to win awards. We do it because we want to do it to the best of our ability, but to win a prestigious award like this is a fantastic bonus.

“The past two years have been amazing. Last year was our best ever by some margin. We grew the business by over 25% compared to the previous year, and this year, although we knew it would be challenging, we managed a further 11% growth, so it was another record year, achieved purely through organic growth.”

He attributed some of the success to moving into sales, adding: “It is commercially logical for our Belvoir business to have a foot in both areas of the property business, as it helped to spread the risks.

“My wife Sally has been fantastic, and can do every job in this office extremely well. Without her, none of this would have been possible.

“We have been fortunate enough to have won many awards over the past ten years, but winning Belvoir’s franchise of the year is a real jewel in the crown.”