TWO businesswomen who took over a hair and beauty salon 12 months ago have launched ambitious future plans.

Lauren Alekna and Stacey Tudor have just completed the second phase of their refurbishment of Legends Hair & Beauty in Redditch and are now looking further ahead. The pair pumped £100,000 into buying the salon and have followed that up with a £23,000 investment to prepare the business for the future. The latest refreshment has seen an outlay of £16,000 in a variety of areas, including new seating, basins and signage, while £7,000 has also been invested in a range of new marketing materials, including an innovative booking system which allows customers to make appointments through their new-look website and Facebook.

Miss Alekna, who is 29, and 27-year-old Mrs Tudor, employ 20 full and part time staff at the salon and believe next year’s launch of Prestige, their planned training academy and apprentice programme, will help them to offer more local jobs and specialist qualifications.

Mrs Tudor said: "The salon has had a well-established training programme for staff for a long time and that has always been popular. But we are now ready to take that to the next level and through the Prestige programme, we’ll be teaching young people new methods, the role technology is playing, the business side of things, and showcasing the latest hair and beauty techniques. We want to help show the next generation of stylists their way in to an exciting career.

“Our recent investment into the salon is part of that vision and takes us one step closer to the launch next year. But it’s also about making sure we’re offering customers and our team the best possible facilities, whether that’s in the salon itself or through the technology we’ve introduced that makes it easy to book an appointment at the click of a mouse or the tap of a smartphone.”