Social housing tenants in Wrexham are set to benefit from more modern accommodation following the awarding of £500,000 worth of works to contractor Novus Property Solutions by Wrexham County Borough Council. The work will see Novus carry out internal re-decoration of void properties and a programme for external repairs and painting to the council’s stock over the next three years, with the potential for a further three-year extension. Novus’s work builds on the relationship the firm has established with Wrexham County Borough Council in previous years carrying out refurbishment and repair projects. Sam Frame, head of operations at Novus, said: “Novus has a strong presence in the North West and Wales and this contract will enable us to strengthen this by employing more people and continue to give back to the communities we operate in. “We’ve built a good understanding of how to deliver refurbishment projects to Wrexham Council’s high standards over the years and, together with experience working alongside other local authorities and housing associations, this will develop further. This contract will ensure social housing in Wrexham is fully prepared for future use.” Lee Roberts, Property Investment Lead at Wrexham County Borough Council, said: “Over the past few years we have invested heavily to improve our housing stock to provide our tenants with modern and affordable housing now and into the future. This contract will see that work continue and as we have worked with Novus in the past we look forward to continued good relations with both ourselves and our tenants.”

Contractor Novus has whisked its 18-strong 2019 cohort of apprentices to the Derbyshire countryside to build a model village ahead of their education in the construction industry. Novus held its Building Success day as part of its wider Apprentice Week at Mount Cook Adventure Centre in Buxton, an eco-friendly venue that Novus helped create in 2016. The annual event brings all of the business’ nationwide apprentices together, giving them an opportunity to meet members of the Seddon family and the wider leadership team. In addition to the Building Success project, the apprentices will learn about Novus’ core values, its customer service and health and safety standards and have the opportunity to work in the local community to deliver a social value project. The Building Success day saw a conference room transformed into a live construction site, where the apprentices were tasked with building a modern village consisting of streets and homes. The event was highly interactive with scaffolding, tools, building materials and safety notices provided to create as close to a real live environment as possible. The teams, consisting of planners, builders and decorators, were supported throughout the day by the Novus operational teams, who will work alongside the apprentices throughout their Apprentice programme. Sarah Collins, head of people services at Novus, said: “Apprentices have always played a fundamental role in Novus’s success and are one of the key reasons we have such strong teams delivering exceptional work across all of the country. “Today’s event has provided our apprentices with an opportunity to put their potential skills to the test and has allowed us all to get to know them better in a practical environment. We’re hoping that all of our 2019 apprentices will go on to have long and successful careers with Novus, whether in professional trade roles or progressing to management and leadership positions. “We’re proud the day proved to be such a success and look forward to following the development of our apprentices over the next few years and beyond.”

Ahead of the filing of our latest payment practice statistics, Neil Washington, our finance director, provides a breakdown of our results. Late payments are a thorn in the side of smaller firms in the construction supply chain. That’s why we have placed an ongoing focus on doing all we can to reduce the time we take to pay our suppliers. Quite rightly, the issue has attracted negative headlines in the construction industry and large companies are now required to report on their payment practices every six months. So, with the deadline for businesses to file their latest available data falling this week, some may be nervous about what the statistics will reveal. Here at Novus, however, we’re happy to report that our commitment to reducing payment times is continuing to bear fruit. The data for the first half of the year shows that we took an average of 29 days to pay our subcontractors. This is an improvement on the already high standard we set ourselves for the same period last year, which was 30 days. To put this in context, according to Construction News’ latest analysis of payment-practice reports, the industry’s largest contractors took an average of 43 days to pay suppliers. It’s not just there where we’ve continued to make improvements. We also now pay 57% of our invoices within 30 days, up from 52% for the first half of 2018, while the proportion of payments outside of terms are down year-on-year. Of course, our work doesn’t stop here and we will continue to focus on this issue. Contractors and their supply chains are dependent on each other’s success. Prompt payment means that subcontractors can maintain healthy cashflow levels, increasing the likelihood of them accepting more work and consistently carrying out quality jobs. Late payment can also have a massive impact on cashflow, increasing the likelihood of insolvency. At a time of skills shortages, reduced access to labour and economic uncertainty, it’s vital that bigger players in the industry are doing all they can to ease the burden smaller firms face.

Novus Property Solutions has won a £200,000 contract to deliver repairs to social housing properties owned by City of York Council. The work will see Novus complete internal and external decoration and repairs to around 320 homes across the city, including works to doors and windows and replacements in houses and blocks of flats. Novus’ work forms part of the City of York Council’s ongoing maintenance programme for housing repairs across 4,650 of its homes – half of the organisation’s total housing stock. Nick Haigh, operations manager for York and Leeds at Novus, said: “Following the launch of our Yorkshire office last year, we’ve succeeded in securing new client relationships and growing work with existing clients. “We have a deep understanding of how to deliver housing repair programmes on a national, regional and local level. This experience, coupled with our approach to partnership working with clients to ensure that our teams reflect the values of local authorities and housing associations, is helping us make a name for the business in Yorkshire.” Last year Novus’s Yorkshire team invested £20,000 in a CSR project for Leeds Action to Create Homes (Latch) where the team refurbished a home to house a homeless person in the city.

Novus Property Solutions has won a £1 million contract to deliver a two-storey extension at Excel Academy in Stoke-on-Trent. The work will see Novus create the new 6,233 sq ft extension which will include six new multi-purpose classrooms. Work includes internal fixtures to the classrooms as well as creating a new covered stairwell as a separate addition. Excel Academy is Stoke-on-Trent’s most oversubscribed school. The extension, which was granted planning consent in November 2018, is designed to increase capacity and improve the flow of students moving around the school between lessons. Work on the extension will be carried out during term time with measures in place to avoid disruption to the school and over the summer ahead of completion in September 2019. Dean Povey, Build Senior Operations Manager at Novus, said: “Excel Academy is a hugely popular school in Stoke-on-Trent and the new classrooms are designed to ensure it can meet current and future student capacity. “Academies, by their nature, have to define their own proposition to parents and students and the quality of learning environments is a huge part of that. Our extensive experience in education means we know how to create spaces that help pupils and teachers to achieve their best, with works specially planned to avoid any disruption.” Stephen Goodwin, Head of Support Services at Excel Academy, said: “We’re incredibly proud of the success of the academy and due to its popularity, we’ve recently had to introduce temporary mobile classrooms to accommodate students. The new extension is designed to provide us with much-needed teaching space and be a long-term solution to the high demand. “Novus’s expertise in the education sector makes it the perfect partner to be delivering this project.”

Contractor Novus has completed a project to build Britain’s smallest Premier Inn hotel as part of an initiative to help offer skills to people living with disabilities. The new three-room hotel is a partnership project with Hereward College in Coventry and will be used as a training facility and provide employment for young people with disabilities in the area. Novus, which works alongside Whitbread to refurbish all of its Premier Inn hotels across the country, built three en-suite bedrooms, a fully functional reception area, corridor and linen room as part of the project. The facility will enable the young people to learn the skills required to gain permanent employment in the hospitality sector. Young people taking part in the programme will also have the opportunity to undertake supported internships with the hotel chain, building on the success of a similar scheme in Shropshire with Derwen College where 15 students have gone on to gain employment with Premier Inn. Alan Nixon, CEO at Novus Property Solutions, said: “Through our partnerships with major clients such as Whitbread we’ve delivered a range of social value projects that have lasting impacts in the towns and communities where we work. “The facility at Hereward College will provide a fantastic opportunity for people living with disabilities and additional needs to gain real skills to support their futures.” Simon Ewins, managing director at Premier Inn, said: “We welcome people from all walks of life and from every corner of the world, and it is only right our workforce reflects this.“We recognise that a diverse and inclusive culture brings significant business benefits and ultimately leads to better business performance and working alongside Novus on this project will enable us to benefit from this.” Paul Cook, Principal at Hereward College said: “We are delighted with the work carried out by Novus to create the Premier Inn training facility at Hereward College. It's great to work alongside businesses who support our ambition to get more people with disabilities into meaningful employment. “ The new training facility will mean that students will be able to gain work experience, learn specific job roles and gain confidence before stepping into the workplace.”