Ascham Homes appoints Osborne to 12,500 property, £225m repairs and maintenance contract

Ascham Homes has appointed family-owned building contractor, civil engineering and property services firm Osborne to maintain its 12,500 homes, primarily in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

The arms length management organisation has appointed Osborne to handle responsive repairs, voids management and planned maintenance starting on 1st April 2012. The seven-year deal has the option to be extended by a further eight years and reach more than £225 million in value.

In line with its commitment to Ascham Homes and its communities of residents, Osborne will open a local office, where a number of employees from both organisations will be based.

Madeleine Forster, Chief Executive of Ascham Homes, said: “Osborne was appointed through a very rigorous selection process, in which residents played a key role in the specification of the new service and interviewing the contractors. We are excited by the prospect of developing a new, long term sustainable relationship that will provide for investment, innovation, best practice and a culture of ‘Right First Time’, while maintaining value for money.”

Nick Sterling, Managing Director of Osborne’s Property Services team, said: “This award followed a rigorous test of all bidders’ credentials and we are looking forward to working with Ascham Homes’ enthusiastic team to deliver a service its residents can be proud of.”

As an arms length management organisation, Ascham Homes is a non-profit organisation set up by the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 2003 to manage and improve the housing it owns. Its 12,500 homes include 1,800 leasehold properties. Ascham Homes is currently agreeing a new ten year management agreement which will see it take on the homelessness and housing advice services from the Council, as well as the management of the Council’s sheltered housing and hostels.

Osborne’s social housing repairs team currently delivers a right-first-time, tailored service, which delivers high levels of resident satisfaction to around 70,000 homes for customers in London and the South East. It has recently introduced new workforce technology with four components working together to ensure repair diagnosis, dynamic scheduling of neighbourhood service teams and readily accessible real time reporting of repair status, financial information and performance statistics, as well as helping customers to manage their assets efficiently, with cost saving initiatives and innovations to boost productivity.