Pair to clean up with Handyman venture

TWO businessmen have combined to launch a new service which, given the current housing market, could prove a winner.

Glenn Warhurst and Tom O’Donnell have launched Pro-Handyman, servicing the rented homes sector with a myriad of small jobs required by landlords.

Mr Warhurst (40), of Moorside, has been running Pro-Clean with his wife Gaynor for the past 15 years. The new division will operate from premises in Hollins Road, Hollins, into which the business has recently moved.

Pro-Handyman is an idea with which Mr Warhurst has toyed for several years, but never developed. A website offered the service — undertaking jobs from changing locks and repairing minor breakages to putting up curtains and removing rubbish — from rented properties.

He has teamed up with Mr O’Donnell (43), who was born in Greenacres but now lives in Atherton, to launch the new venture.

Mr O’Donnell will become a director of Pro-Handyman once the new operation is incorporated while continuing to run his own property management and development business.

He said: “With the rented sector becoming increasingly popular, because people simply cannot secure mortgages in the current economic climate, we see great opportunities for the new venture.”

Mr Warhurst, who started working for himself as a window cleaner 20 years ago and moved into the professional, one-off contract cleaning business 15 years ago, has toyed with the Pro-Handyman idea for several years.

A site offering the service sat alongside his Pro-Clean internet offering but the business itself was never activated.

“Then I got a call from a company in Manchester which manages 480 rented properties. They were looking for a service contract to look after their estate and we were off and running,” explained Mr Warhurst.

“We are flexible in terms of hours and we will undertake any job, from small repairs to repairing appliances,” said Mr O’Donnell.