James and Teresa Coffey with family and friends received an award from the British-Irish Trade Alliance (BITA) in the Mansion House, London.

Coffeys congratulated

A vote of congratulations has been passed by the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad on the achievement of a Westmeath couple who have been awarded the Freedom of the City of London

It was Cllr Frank McDermott who proposed that congratulations be extended James and Teresa Coffey, originally from Castlepollard and Mullingar respectively, who were honoured in recognition of their contribution to life in London.

“It’s with absolute delight I propose this,” said Cllr McDermott, saying it was likely they were the first Westmeath people ever to receive this honour.

“[James] started off small, worked hard, grew his business and now who is highly regarded and highly recognised across London for the work that he does,” he said.

Their firm, the J Coffey Group, founded in 1991, is one of the top construction players in Greater London and the southeast of the UK, winning contracts for major works at Battersea Power Station, and in Ireland, the concrete, civil and groundworks package for Facebook’s data centre at Clonee, County Meath. Today, the firm employs around 1,200 people between the UK and Ireland.