Housing contractor Wates Living Space is celebrating a multi-million pound extension to its repairs and maintenance work to 31,000 homes for Birmingham City Council.

Over the past three years, its work for the council has included 338,578 housing repairs completed, 89,829 gas services, 17,401 electrical tests and inspections and the refurbishment of 4,867 void properties. It has also spent £84.6m with local small businesses, a further £2.9m with Social Enterprises and has invested over £870,000 in training for local people.

The contract extension will see this work continue until the Spring of 2022. The company has achieved an average customer satisfaction score of 99.8 per cent, 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 £27,000 in supporting education, including career workshops at Erdington Skills Centre.

Wates Living Space’s work on behalf of the council 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.”

By Patrick Mooney, Editor