Business writer Sabah Meddings talks to the founder of East Anglia’s largest independent housebuilder about his career.

At the age of 20, James Hopkins had few qualifications, and his father, a doctor, had begun to despair of him.

In his words he “didn’t too terribly well at school” but, like fellow entrepreneurs Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson, used his wits to launch his first business venture.

Fast-forward 37 years and the father-of-five is the majority shareholder of East Anglia’s biggest independent housebuilder, and is planning his expansion further into Essex and Cambridgeshire.

This journey to executive chairman of a £115m-turnover company saw the father-of-five sell fish for a living, give it up and sail the Mediterranean for two years, before putting his last £4,000 towards a rundown cottage.

Now Mr Hopkins, who grew up in Southwold, resides in multi-million pound Denston Hall, near Newmarket, where electric gates greet visitors before they are met by a rambling drive towards the main house.

But for Mr Hopkins, who built 500 homes across the region last year mainly in Norfolk and Suffolk, struggling at school was the route to his success.

“If you don’t succeed when you are young it makes you succeed later on in life because you don’t have a choice,” he said.

“I was only 20 and had had a sheltered life. But I bought my own vans and started from nothing.”

Today Hopkins Homes employs 125 permanent staff, and could have between 1.500 and 2,000 sub-contracters working on sites at any one time.

Mr Hopkins, 56, said: “It’s grown every year apart from 2008/09 as the market slowed down.

“If you are an entrepreneur there are good times and slightly less good times, but we have always been successful.

“We have never had a year when we haven’t made a profit. We have grown the business every year. We have employed more people every year. We are now a major part of the local economy.”

Pre-tax profits rose 120% to more than £22.3m for the year ending April 2015, and it is this that has enabled Mr Hopkins to meet the growing demand for housing, with new land purchases funding by working capital and bank debt, he said.

“We reinvest most of the profit back into the business,” he added. “That’s how we have expanded.”

Hopkins Homes’ strength lies in its independence, without hundreds of shareholders to satisfy with growing dividends.

Mr Hopkins praised the Government’s pro-building policies, and said he was determined to remain profitable during any potential Brexit slowdown.

Mr Hopkins, who founded the Melton-based firm, said: “It’s a massive help for young people that the Government is really recognising the needs for more housing.

“We have a serious housing crisis in this country, and the only way we can meet this is by medium-sized housebuilders getting bigger.”

He said growing profits was key to securing development land, which could cost up to £2m an acre.

“We are delivering the housing the government wants and we employ an awful lot of people,” he added. “You can’t run a company like mine without growing if you want to build more housing.”

But new figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyers say house prices in East Anglia are expected to fall in the next year, after house prices increased by 8.1%, or £16,000, on average over the year to May.

However Mr Hopkins said he would welcome house price inflation coming down to a more sustainable level of 2-4%.

“If house prices get too high that might be the start of a downward cycle,” he said. “We want the house price to be relatively stable.”

Not that it has all been plain sailing until now. A skills and materials shortage since the market picked up in 2012 has put pressure on costs, with workers demanding higher wages and a brick shortage pushing up prices.

Attitudes among communities where new homes are built has also presented challenges, but Mr Hopkins said the company’s focus on design and quality allowed him to build “communities we can be proud of”.

“I do sympathise with certain communities where they have had developments which aren’t very attractive”, added Mr Hopkins.

“We do try and build homes that blend in with existing houses. We are really particular about design. We don’t want to build blights on the landscape. We are local people and we’re here for the long term.”