Affordable housing provider Stonewater has appointed social housing maintenance specialist Wates Living Space to deliver a 15-year programme of housing repairs to nearly 10,000 homes and worth around £105m.
The new collaborative partnership, which began on the 2nd November, aims to support Stonewater in the delivery of its customer promise, with particular emphasis on providing high quality customer service and delivering day-to-day repairs and voids to Stonewater’s customers.
Wates will be responsible for carrying out responsive repairs, voids and planned maintenance works across Stonewater’s schemes in the West and East regions; ranging from Wolverhampton to Tewksbury to Coventry and from Milton Keynes to Cambridge to Watford.
To ensure smooth management throughout the contract, Wates has opened a new office in Milton Keynes and implemented a new IT solution to offer seamless interfacing with Stonewater systems. The onboarding of new employees has also taken place through a series of remote and socially distanced inductions to ensure the contract complies with all local and national COVID-19 guidance.
As part of the updated service, the housing association has implemented new tools on its myHome portal enabling customers to report any maintenance issues, as well as over the phone — offering greater flexibility for customers.
Patrick Chauvin, Executive Director of Assets at Stonewater, said: “Providing good quality homes is one of our main priorities to help tackle the housing crisis and this includes ensuring any maintenance carried out in our homes is addressed efficiently and to a high standard.
“When partnering with any company it’s always important to us that we collaborate with businesses whose values align with our own. After a robust, two-stage procurement process we selected Wates as our repairs contractor because they demonstrated an understanding of our customers’ needs and their ability to deliver a good service.”
Steve Coombs, Divisional Director for Wates Living Space added: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Stonewater to help maintain and improve the homes of their residents.
“Delivery of a quality service is of paramount importance to us, and we are committed to placing customers at the heart of everything we do. This contract compliments the work Wates are already completing for residents across the East and West Midlands. It is a testament to the dedication and collaborative approach of our Wates and Stonewater teams that we have been able to successfully mobilise this contract, in two different geographic areas in less than three months, during an ongoing pandemic.”
