Housing associations work with Wolseley on repair service

Procure Plus, a consortium of North West registered social landlords, has helped two housing groups improve their repair service through a partnership with building merchant Wolseley.

Procure initially worked with Together Housing Group, which incorporates Twin Valley Homes, Housing Pendle, Pennine Housing 2000, Green Vale Homes and Chevin Housing Association, to arrange for Wolseley to make its goods available from a depot in Blackburn.

This helped Blackburn-based Twin Valley obtain the materials it needed to carry out repairs quickly.

Preston-based Places for People, which manages around 60,000 properties throughout the UK, heard about the tie-up and now uses the service.

Ian Rumsam, head of homeworks at Together Housing Group, said: "Working in this way has been fantastic for all parties involved. It has generated considerable time and cost savings for Places for People and it has delivered a more efficient and competitive agreement for Together Housing Group by reducing our overheads."

Gwen Heap, business executive at Procure Plus, said: "We actively encourage our members to explore opportunities to work with others, in order to achieve best value. By combining resources, the organisations involved have all benefited from cost savings, improved efficiency and better delivery of services."