Wates Living Space has revealed the extent of its positive contributions to Birmingham as the business extends its contract to deliver housing repairs and maintenance across the city on behalf of Birmingham City Council.
Since commencing the major programme of housing repairs in 2016, Wates Living Space has spent £84.6m with local small businesses, a further £2.9m with Social Enterprises and has invested over £870k in training for local people.
Wates launches its ‘Creating Tomorrow Together’ Contract Impact Report as it prepares to extend its work on behalf of the council for a further two years, which will see the business deliver repairs and maintenance for 31,000 homes* across the city.
The contract extension, which will commence in April 2020, will see Wates build on the work delivered over the past three years, which includes 89,829 gas services, 17,401 electrical tests and inspections and the refurbishment of 4,867 void properties.
To date this work has seen Wates achieve an average customer satisfaction score of 99.8%, while also becoming winner of the UK Housing Awards 2018 for ‘Outstanding Approach to Repairs and Housing Maintenance’.
As part of the contract extension, Wates has made a pledge to build on its investment in education, training and employment in Birmingham. To date this has included 1,788 weeks of training and employment for local people and an investment of over £27k in supporting education, including career workshops at Erdington Skills Centre.
Wates Living Space’s work on behalf of Birmingham City Council has also included a flagship project to refurbish the 20-storey Barry Jackson Tower in Aston, which opened this year as a pioneering initiative to offer temporary accommodation to the city’s homeless people.
David Morgan, Managing Director of Wates Property Services, commented: “The success of our work for Birmingham City Council can be seen in the scale and quality of our housing repairs and maintenance across the city, and particularly in the consistently high customer satisfaction scores our teams have achieved.
“The true impact of this work, however, is evident in the extent of the positive impact we have made to the lives of local people. The team in Birmingham have worked tirelessly to find ways in which they can make a difference, whether this is in supporting students, training job-seekers or in volunteering time to help local good causes. I am extremely proud of what has been achieved and very much look forward to seeing this great work continue in the coming years.”
Wates Living Space currently delivers repairs and maintenance for approximately 12,664 properties in west central Birmingham, including Perry Barr and Ladywood districts, and 18,363 properties in east Birmingham, including Hodge Hill, Yardley and Hall Green districts (31, 027 properties in total).
