Property auctioneer Clive Emson has been awarded an MBE for services to vulnerable and disadvantaged young people in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Emson, chairman of Clive Emson Land and Property Auctioneers, received the accolade for his work with the Young Lives Foundation, an independent children’s charity dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people.
The charity currently helps around 3,500 children a year through its mentoring, befriending and activity programmes.
Each year 200 volunteers donate 21,000 hours of their time to working with young people in Kent, while some 786 young people attend its positive activity programmes.
As the founding chairman of the charity and president since August 2016, Emson said the key to its success with young people was “being a kind of grandfather to young people in care”.
“The problem is that once they turn 18, the system drops away and they’re pretty much left on their own,” he said. “And that is just the point when you need an adult to help with things like job applications or getting a flat.
“The tricky bit is winning their trust and showing them that you’re not just another adult who is going to let them down.”
Emson established the auction company in Folkestone, Kent, at the height of the 1989 recession after resigning as regional director for Prudential Property Services.
Over the past 30 years, the business has since become one of the UK’s most active regional property auctioneers.
This week it staged its fourth auction of 2019, for which 136 lots were catalogued.
The firm holds a regional auction at five locations every six weeks, as well as a fixed-date online auction.
