Wates to improve social housing stock with ‘healthy homes’ launch

Wates, which manages repairs and maintenance for over 500,000 homes on behalf of 65 social landlord customers, has launched a new dedicated service designed to combat two of the greatest challenges facing social housing, disrepair, and damp and mould.

The new Healthy Homes service, which boasts six customers in place already, will see Wates offer existing and new customers a bespoke programme of work, utilising both a direct labour force and specialist supply chain to help social landlords provide healthy homes for their residents.

Formed of two individual workstreams, with compliant routes to markets through a range of frameworks, Healthy Homes will focus efforts to reduce the number of nationwide disrepair cases, helping social landlords to address repairs before they become legal disputes, reducing legal fees and resulting in happy and safe residents.

Alongside disrepair, the Healthy Homes service also includes work to address the increasing challenge of damp and mould, which is estimated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RHS) to affect 160,000 social housing properties in England.

The Damp and Mould service will include measures to proactively mitigate against the depleting quality of housing stock, sourcing cost effective and innovative solutions to improve ventilation.

These will include products and services identified by Wates Sustainable Technology Services through the Wates Innovation Network (WIN) Portal, which works to identify innovative technologies to improve property efficiency and lifespan.

Products to be used by through the new service include thermoboards to improve insulation, air bricks that monitor humidity and support ventilation, and air monitoring systems to help improve air quality.

Healthy Homes will sit alongside our core services for social housing landlords, which includes planned and responsive repairs and maintenance, fire safety and compliance, and their market leading energy efficiency retrofit portfolio. Learn more about the services available to social landlords.

David Morgan, Executive Managing Director of Wates Property Services, said: “Issues of disrepair, and damp and mould are a growing challenge for social landlords, which are compounded by equally pressing priorities of energy efficiency retrofit, routine maintenance and fire safety. Treating these with equal importance is vital, but can create budgetary pressures. The aim of our Healthy Homes service is to work with customers to address these challenges alongside our complementary services, ensuring that we are improving the lives of residents at every available opportunity while maximising value for money for landlords.

“Good communication and resident engagement will sit at the heart of our new Healthy Homes service, underpinned by the experience and care of our growing team of resident liaison officers. By their nature, issues of disrepair, damp or mould bring worry and distress to residents, many of whom are in vulnerable circumstances. Our Healthy Homes service is designed to help our customers combat these challenges so that residents can lead happier and healthier lives.”