Reflecting on 2025 for our Public Services and Commercial team

It’s been a busy twelve months for our Public Services and Commercial team: here we reflect on our highlights from the last year.

New contracts secured

Our Head of Operations, John McMonigle, leads on our Fast Track Fit Out Projects and he believes what sets us apart is our personal, relationship-led approach to business. He says: “We are never complacent, we’re always striving to deliver the best possible service and highest quality finish, while keeping disruption to a minimum, particularly when working in live environments.”

This is an approach that has proved successful this year with a raft of new contract wins and projects in the pipeline as we go into 2026. We’ve also just signed an exciting refurbishment contract with Hampton by Hilton hotels, more details on that to follow.

In November we commenced work on a 12-month project to refurbish a five-floor Ibis hotel in the centre of Birmingham with 250 bedrooms plus communal areas. The hotel will remain open to guests throughout so works will be phased with one floor completed at a time.

We’re incredibly proud of our 20+ year working relationship with the University of Manchester and with a new measured term contract now in place for building fabric works and projects this continues to go from strength to strength.

In the same vein we’re also proud to be a long-standing partner to Whitbread, with a relationship spanning 15 years and counting. This year we were pleased to have been reappointed to Whitbread’s national refurbishment framework to continue delivering high-quality refurbishments across the Premier Inn estate which is testament to the excellent work we’ve done to date.

This autumn, we were delighted to support Whitbread with a new Premier Inn training centre in Lincolnshire as part of its Thrive programme which aims to tackle the disability employment gap. We created the new facility by transforming two classrooms and a corridor at the college into an exact replica of a Premier Inn including three en-suite bedrooms, a reception desk, corridor and linen room. Our project team completed it in just eight weeks, all while the college remained fully operational.

Projects successfully completed

The last twelve months has seen us complete numerous projects across the education, healthcare and hospitality sectors, Richard Hubball, our Framework Manager shares some of our standout projects.

We started the year as we meant to go on, completing a five-month project to create a new and upgraded space for the Hand Therapies and Plastics Department at Wythenshawe Hospital. The project involved a refit complete with clinical bays and rooms, offices and an open area with the team undertaking a vast scope of works from demolishing walls to implementing medical gases to treatment rooms and installing and connecting a patient calling system.

We’ve also completed three projects at the University of York including the refurbishment of its 16th century Grade II* Listed Heslington Hall administration building and a major project to develop its PS Hub 2 to create a future-proof workspace. This 12-week project involved the full strip-out and refurbishment of existing teaching and office areas with extensive internal remodelling and structural alterations. We’re also refurbishing the Sports Village’s changing facilities which will complete by the end of the financial year.

Over the summer we finished a £1.8 million student accommodation refurbishment programme in Bristol with Forge Development. Upgrades were completed across the cluster kitchens and studios at two sites within a strict 12-week programme.

By August we’d also completed works in collaboration with Baqus to deliver a 14-week programme to convert an existing Holiday Inn Express to a Premier Inn which involved the complete strip out of 127 bedrooms across seven floors.

This year marked the midway point of a four-year measured term contract with the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Didsbury, one of the UK’s leading cancer treatment centres. The contract covers internal refurbishment, alterations, backlog maintenance, lifecycle improvements and external improvement works.

Out and about

You might have seen our Public Services and Commercial team out and about as we’ve had a packed calendar of events to attend and host this year. Kyle Wright, our Business Development Manager was at the AUDE Showcase in September where the issue of rightsizing university estates was a real talking point. Kyle shared his key takeaways including lessons learned about how we as a refurbishment and retrofit contractor can help serve the changing needs of the sector in his latest blog.

Over the spring and summer we visited UKREiiF in Leeds, the Net Zero Nations Projects Conference in London and Procurex in Liverpool. And Autumn brought another wave of events for the education and healthcare sectors. As well as the AUDE Showcase we were pleased to attend both Education Estates and Healthcare Estates in Manchester. We hosted an informal drinks reception at Education Estates and networking lunch on at Healthcare Estates, both of which gave us chance to catch up with lots of old faces and meet some new ones. Thanks to everyone who came along and supported us.