Date: 19/06/2019
Fortem has secured repairs and maintenance contracts worth up to a total of £329.9 million with five housing associations across England, all beginning in the first half of 2019.
The contractor's raft of wins kicked off in February, with the extension of its ongoing contract with PA Housing by 4,000 London homes, in a deal that runs until June 2022.
In April, it began delivering a 10-year, £6 million per annum contract with Onward, along with a 10-year £3.5 million to £4 million per annum contract with Anchor Hanover.
A further two contracts will go live this month: a 15-year deal with Stonewater, which starts at £4.2 million per annum, rising to £8 million by its third year; and a 10-year deal with Equity Housing Group and Johnnie Johnson Housing, amounting to £2.7 million in its first year, and £12 million per annum for the following nine years.
This business success has led to Fortem expanding into new geographical areas and providing services to residents living in an additional 34,000 homes, located up and down the country, between the Isles of Scilly in the South West and Berwick-upon-Tweed in the North East.
In order to provide its tailored, local services to its new clients and their customers, Fortem will be forming a new North East-based team, as well as opening business hubs in the North West and South West, each with its own dedicated workforce. Work will also be delivered via its established hubs in the South East, West Midlands and Yorkshire.
Fortem specialises in providing work and training opportunities to people living in its local communities, and its new contracts will result in hundreds of additional work placements being offered to individuals from all walks of life.
The contractor's award-winning apprenticeship scheme will be extended to at least 78 additional apprentices over the term of the new arrangements; and with Fortem’s current apprenticeship retention rate being more than 97%, the vast majority of these new recruits are set to benefit from long-term employment with the organisation.
At Stonewater, for which Fortem is set to provide reactive and planned maintenance services to 6,519 homes between Bournemouth and Bristol in the South West, Scott Baxendale, executive director assets, said: "Our aim is to provide better homes for all our customers, and we are very happy that Fortem is now delivering its excellent services to thousands of them. We see this as the beginning of a long term, collaborative partnership."
Ian Watts, executive director of assets PA Housing, where Fortem already provides repairs and maintenance services to 7,200 homes and is extending its offer to another 4,000 homes ¬– said: “Fortem have delivered a very good service to PA Housing over the last seven years with excellent customer satisfaction, so expanding to cover all of our homes in London made perfect sense. The overall service and customer experience has already improved significantly over the first three months of the contract.”
