Social housing provider EastendHomes (EeH) has awarded Morgan Sindall Property Services a 10-year, £38 million contract to provide repairs, maintenance and refurbishment services across its properties in Tower Hamlets, east London.
From 1 July 2017, the company will deliver responsive repairs, void refurbishments and compliance services to almost 4,000 homes at the Mile End, St George’s, Glamis, Holland and Island Gardens estates. Internal and external planned refurbishment works will start in the second year of the contract.
The service will be managed from the local housing centres based on the estates, with a specialist Morgan Sindall Property Services team of engineers working out of each office. Morgan Sindall Property Services will also manage EastendHomes’ existing in-house handyperson repairs service.
John Henderson, EastendHomes managing director, said: “The successful appointment of Morgan Sindall Property Services to this extremely important contract followed a very rigorous selection process that involved a number of EeH residents. The selection of Morgan Sindall allows us to continue to deliver services through our local estate-based structures and build on our existing successful handyperson arrangement. Over the last few months we have been working closely with Morgan Sindall to carefully mobilise the new contract in order to ensure a smooth transition and a continuance of the high satisfaction levels that our tenants have with their repairs and maintenance service.”
Paul Reader, Morgan Sindall Property Services partnerships director, said: “We’re delighted to be entering into this long-term partnership with EastendHomes with the award of this major integrated asset management contract.
“EastendHomes wanted to retain a local, familiar service for residents but also to adopt a more proactive approach to managing the repairs and maintenance of their housing stock in order to deliver sustained improvements.
Left to right, Simon Church, partnership manager for Morgan Sindall Property Services; Jacek Matejuk, senior quantity surveyor, MSPS; Roger Thompson, head of asset management, EastendHomes; Marcus Cox, regional director, MSPS; John Hinds, technical services manager, EastendHomes.
“The introduction of Morgan Sindall Property Services’ integrated works and asset management system – an advanced software solution – will allow repair data to be continuously analysed. This will enable EastendHomes to invest in planned maintenance and refurbishment of homes more strategically, helping the organisation to get maximum value from its maintenance budgets. It will also deliver service improvements through greater visibility and tracking of repairs.”
In addition, residents will benefit from a repairs and maintenance service operating from local estate-based housing offices where they can walk in and speak to someone face to face, as well as become familiar with their estate engineers. A customer performance manager will ensure performance and quality remains high across all estates and that resources are shared when needed.
Morgan Sindall Property Services will also work in close partnership with the Bromley by Bow Centre (BBBC) to deliver a range of social value initiatives for EastendHomes and Tower Hamlets residents. These will include apprenticeships, corporate volunteering commitments, and enhancements of the new tenancy advice service that BBBC currently offers to all new EastendHomes residents.
EastendHomes is a registered provider of social housing, based in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and has been operating since 2005. It was set up as part of the Tower Hamlets Choice programme which enabled council housing tenants to vote to transfer the ownership of their estates to housing associations. EastendHomes’ vision is to “provide a local housing service which is efficient, gives value for money and meets the needs, priorities and aspirations of all residents”.
