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At the time, in the late 70s, Roberts was working as technical director for Debenhams Group property arm. It was part of the organisation which took care of the Group's own properties, but also acted on behalf of other leading retailers such as WH Smith, and Mothercare. Before that, Roberts had been on the consultancy side.

"Over the years of working for consultants, I realised that m&e got a pretty bad reputation in terms of the product and service it provided to clients. I thought this was deserved at the time, because design was very basic, and left massive loopholes which the contractor had to deal with," says Roberts.

The decision to stop being a client and go back to the other side of the fence could have been a tough one. But Roberts is not one to turn his back on an opportunity: "I wanted to improve all those things I thought were wrong about the service being offered." And so Roberts & Partners was formed in the mid 1980s, with a team of 12 people based in Basingstoke.

  "Our business culture was formed out of producing a quality product," explains Roberts. "Very early on we secured J Sainsbury as a client, and they wanted the type of service we were offering. We delivered detailed drawings which minimised contractor input."

This vision has stayed with Roberts, and he returns to the theme often. "It's about getting the basics right. We did that in the early days. It was a differentiator, and is still a significant part of our service."

The consultancy has a broad range of clients across sectors including commercial, hotels, leisure, mixed use, education, data centres and PFI projects. But possibly their best known project is Bluewater shopping centre – the largest in the country at 154 000 m², and a construction cost of £360 million.

"The client challenged us to work in new ways. There was constant and rigorous value engineering which produced a much-improved final solution." The consultancy carried out two further projects for the same client, and established itself as a leading player in the retail and shopping centre sectors.

Roberts sees Bluewater as a key element of why the firm has won its latest contract – the Dubai Festival City project. Based on the waterfront, Festival City will be one million square metres of mixed use property. Roberts & Partners has been appointed m&e consultant for the 800 000 m² phase one development.

"We had took part in some very intensive workshops with the client, and we used our in-house expert engineering development group." says Roberts. But he believes that sending in senior staff and using previous experience paid off and won the contract.

Roberts & Partners now has 250 employees across five UK offices, with its hq in London, commanding impressive views across the Thames.

Expansion has taken a partner-route, which has enabled Roberts & Partners to move into new geographical regions with good local knowledge – although there are offices in Manilla, Madrid and Dubai.

Other partners include lighting consultant Kondos Roberts, and RPMS a facilities management specialist.

Roberts sees the globalisation of building services as both a threat and an opportunity. "One of the threats is from the tiger economies. The quality of engineers and technologies there is very high. One of the UK's problems is a shortage of engineers." But the consultancy has used technology to access engineering expertise from its Manilla office. "Technology allows us to send drawings around the world," says Roberts.

Roberts retains his clear vision for the company and says that the 'next generation' of management is ready to assume greater responsibility, and they share his sense of direction.

"We take a lot of pride in what we do. People here believe strongly in our culture, and what we are doing to achieve success."