Housing Maintenance Contracts Top of Norwich City Council’s Agenda
Retrofit and new build housing ordinarily dominate the news and agenda for associations and authorities across the UK to focus its improvements. Despite this, it is essential that associations continue to fund the maintenance of existing stock and ensure these improvements don’t slip under the radar.
Acknowledging this issue, Norwich City Council recently approved the procurement of over £6m worth of contracts specifically focused on the maintenance of existing stock.
Covering a wider range of housing components needing repair, the procurement contracts cover heating, electrics, windows, communal area regeneration and internal/external decorations.
With the interim period lasting 12 months, the council will then reconvene and channel funding into more specific areas that may still need to be completed in the original procurement and also any issues noted that may have been missed from the original framework.
Maintenance of existing homes usually slips under the radar
In a report on the procurement, put to the cabinet at the end of March 2023, the authority will be enabling new term contracts, building on the original survey. Additionally, the Norwich Council carries out a five-year rolling stock condition survey of its properties.
Building on the report, Norwich City Council stated: “The award of these contracts is required to enable the council to deliver the ongoing service provisions for 2023-24. All current contracts covering these provisions end on 31 March 2023, and it is not possible to extend them by way of a variation.”
The new contracts will be interim arrangements for one year to enable the procurement of new ‘term’ contracts that will be influenced by the ongoing stock condition survey.
Some of the approved contractors include Anglian Building Products, Dodd Group, Gasway Services, Foster Property Maintenance, Breyer Group, and Mitie Property Services.
Norwich City Council showing continued support for decarbonisation
This comes off the back of further policy commitments by Norwich City Council, who, earlier this year, announced plans to spend £290m for the decarbonisation of existing housing stock.
Success of these projects will be measured through the achievement of the Energy Performance Certificate rating C by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
