Contractors cross the border as English decent homes work ends
Builders move on £3bn Welsh repairs market
Building contractors are looking to Wales for new business as work on decent homes programmes in England dries up.
Bullock Construction, Wates and Connaught are among the companies which have set up offices in Wales in the hope of tapping into the £3 billion housing improvement market there.
Welsh social landlords are expected to bring their 237,400 properties up to the Welsh housing quality standard by the end of 2012. According to the last survey just 16,000 met the standard in 2004.
The market for decent homes work in England is almost complete, with 95 per cent of social housing set to meet the standard by 2010.
Keith Edwards, director of the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru, said: ‘Decent homes is coming to an end and the Welsh market looks like it’s taking off.
‘Contractors are looking at it as somewhere they can get some business over the next few years.’
He explained a recent increase in stock transfers had made the Welsh market more attractive to contractors because housing associations could borrow money to invest in their homes, unlike councils. There are no arm’s-length management organisations in Wales.
Welsh Assembly government figures revealed that in 2004 no local authority stock met the standard, but Mr Edwards said he thought more councils would reach it by 2012.
Wates Living Space opened an office in Cardiff two years ago and another in Wrexham in the past few months. It is working on the Cardiff Council and Newport City Homes WHQS programmes.
Connaught set up offices in Cardiff after it secured a contract following the first transfer of homes in Wales from Bridgend Council to Valleys to Coast Housing in 2003. It is also working on WHQS programmes for RCT Homes, which took over 11,000 homes from Rhondda Cynon Taff Council in December 2007.
Geoff Thomas, client relationship director for Connaught, said: ‘The Welsh housing quality standard is the initiative that’s created a lot of work.
‘We are expecting more to come up and we want to be part of it. We have invested a lot in Wales.’
The WHQS is wider-reaching than the English decent homes standard and stipulates that homes must be in ‘attractive and safe environments’.
Predicted cost
0.8 per cent
Proportion of social housing that met the Welsh housing quality standard in 2004
£3 billion
To bring all homes up to the Welsh housing quality standard
£4 billion
To maintain the standard over 30 years
Source: CIH LIving in Wales
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