A female-friendly building company has set up shop with the aim of kicking out the cowboys.

Kerrie Keeling founded A Woman's Touch in London several years ago to great acclaim and has decided to make Brighton her first venture outside the capital.

The award-winning company is accredited by the Federation of Master Builders and offers a full range of building services, from refurbishments to electrical rewiring and plumbing.

Most of the employees are women and Kerrie believes this has helped them tap into a huge market of people fed up with the macho image of builders.

She said: "I was an investment banker but I've always been very practical and did my own decorating and tiling and things.

"I found that when I got tradesmen in to do a job they were disgraceful, frankly. The quality of work was very poor and the mess they left behind was unbelievable.

"We don't just appeal to women.

The gay market in particular loves the philosophy and a lot of professional men are more comfortable leaving their keys with us."

Annie Smart moved from London to become regional manager of the Brighton operation. She studied furniture and product design before working for a joinery company and retraining as a carpenter. She said: "You get a lot more support from the people you work with at A Woman's Touch. When you work with men no one seems to share ideas or skills but there is lots of that with women.

"There is also a lot more attention to detail. We may take a little bit more time but we make sure we get the job done properly."

Not everyone has embraced the idea, however. Annie said: "There are still old-school attitudes. I was told the other day, There are lots of jobs for women, why don't you do one of those?'. But there is definitely room for us in the marketplace.

Our rates are good and we give a good, honest service. We want to get rid of the cowboy image tradespeople can have."

When she was looking for new areas for the business, Kerrie found Brighton was a perfect match. She said: "The city is not too far from London and there is a large gay population, which makes up a big portion of our client base."

A Woman's Touch employs two full-time employees and nine subcontractors for the Brighton area but Kerrie hopes to expand.

She said: "We cover from Worthing to Eastbourne and up to Haywards Heath. Hopefully it will soon be the whole of the county.

"The hardest part is finding staff.

We have customers coming out of our ears but finding reliable and qualified tradespeople is difficult.

"Finding women is even harder so I am thinking about setting up a female-only training academy."

For more information, go to www.awomanstouch.org.uk.