Comprehensive Whole House Refurbishment for Energy Efficiency – Guinness Partnership
The Guinness Partnership is one of the largest providers of affordable housing and care in England. Founded as a charitable trust in 1890, their purpose is to provide great homes and services – including care services – to nearly 160,000 customers across the country.
Novus has worked with the Guinness Partnership across the Southwest since 2018, delivering a range of planned property reinvestment work across their diverse property portfolio, including general needs, extra care, independent living and sheltered accommodation. This equates to approximately £4.6m per annum.
Due to the success of this relationship, and after a competitive tender process, we secured an additional project in January 2024 for the whole house refurbishment of 50 properties concentrated in the Wistaston Green area of Crewe, under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Funding Wave 2.1 scheme. The properties consist of a range of archetypes, including mid-terraced, end-terraced, and semi-detached houses.
The work scope includes several PAS 2030 compliant energy efficiency measures, and associated property improvement works. The scope varies dependent on each individual property’s requirements, but generally includes enabling, EWI, loft insulation, windows, doors, kitchen refurbishments, bathroom refurbishments, roofing, ventilation, electricals, externals, boiler flue alterations, and reconfigurations of incoming gas supply.
The works fall under a full design and build arrangement, and we are working closely alongside Guinness’ other key partners, including Retrofit Coordinator Eco Surv Limited, Designer Constructive Thinking Limited, and Principal Designer Warburton Associates.
We are based locally in the area and have set up our office space and welfare in a property provided by the Guinness Partnership. As part of our mobilisation, before starting any work, we held a one-day drop-in resident engagement event at our site offices. One event was held in the morning, and another in the afternoon, to explain the works in more detail to residents and answer any queries. This was held collaboratively with the wider team, including with the Guinness Partnership.
We are now in the process of undertaking a benchmarking project to five properties as our first phase, working collaboratively with the retrofit team and residents to confirm required standards and identify the optimum approach for delivering the works. Once complete, these properties will be used to demonstrate all quality standards, and act as a visual benchmark for all works leading on from this.
The project has a deadline for completion by 2025, requiring us to work efficiently and effectively, whilst meeting all PAS 2035 compliance standards. The work is being delivered through a blend of directly employed staff and local subcontractors, promoting the use of local businesses and driving benefits to the local economy.
