At Concept Elevators, we’re committed to playing a constructive role within our community. With that in mind, we’re proud to partner with housing associations to help install and maintain a range of access solutions for social and affordable housing.
Housing associations need to provide a range of accommodation to meet the different needs of a diverse range of clients. Alongside this comes a need for reliable access for a variety of residents and their visitors.
Residents and communities come first
Housing associations are a vital part of the country’s housing infrastructure. They build and maintain thousands of homes across the country, which are often let to people on lower incomes or those in particular housing need. They also provide an affordable means by which people can become homeowners with options to ‘staircase’ from renting to shared ownership.
Many of their housing options are higher density, with lifts being essential for residents and their visitors to come and go, quickly and safely. Housing associations will also provide accommodation for people with a range of extra needs, be they people with disabilities or elderly residents. These housing options will frequently need specialised solutions to aid mobility across the building.
Robust and affordable solutions
We work with housing associations to provide the access they need. We design, select, install, maintain and refurbish lifts across the housing association property portfolio. We work to ensure that our lifts are robust, reliable and discourage vandalism, and can cope with the demands that are placed on lifts in potentially busy environments.
Crucially, we work hard to drive down costs for housing associations without compromising on quality and safety. We believe that housing association tenants should have high-quality and reliable lifts with the risk of downtime and other issues being kept to an absolute minimum.
A twenty-year partnership
Over the years we’ve developed an understanding of the unique requirements of housing associations. For nearly two decades we’ve worked with Walsall Housing Group Limited (WHG) in the management of its extensive lift portfolio. As well as providing a comprehensive maintenance service, we also regularly upgrade their lift portfolio introducing new technologies.
One such recent upgrade involved lift communication where we replaced fixed telephone lines with new GSM technology. Fixed lines are notoriously problem prone, requiring regular attention to keep them working as they should. Our upgrade removes these issues, reducing overall maintenance needs with all of the resulting disruption this means for residents. The upgrade also makes it easier for WHG to monitor all of the two-way communication in its lifts as well as enabling us to respond quickly to any faults.
As part of this ongoing partnership, Concept Elevators have signed up to be a part of Walsall Housing Group’s ambitious social improvement plan. A component of this plan is their tenant job finder scheme through which we appointed a new apprentice.
Another way in which we’ve helped is through our social value payback work at Bamford House. Unfortunately, the outdoor communal area had in the past been a victim of vandalism. Our hard working team rolled up their sleeves to remove the old benches and tidied up the vandalised area.
We also manufactured and installed two brand new benches. Through the thanks we received from residents we knew we’d made a real difference to their quality of life, opening up a space that had previously been a no-go area.
As our services to housing associations are ongoing we see this kind of engagement as vital, helping us to build relationships, deepen our understanding of resident needs and giving something back to the wider community.
Maintenance agreements for housing associations
Regular maintenance is vital to ensure the safe, consistent operation of lifts, particularly in busy residential settings. Our maintenance contracts ensure that not only do the lifts in your buildings receive regular maintenance we can also be on hand in the event of breakdowns.
The role of maintenance is to avoid down time which can be costly for the housing association as well as inconvenient for the residents. All of our maintenance packages are backed up by our highly experienced and dedicated managerial and administrative teams.
If you’re looking for a trusted and experienced partner to help your housing association deliver its objective while ensuring costs don’t run out of control, then Concept Elevators can help.
Call 01543 273673 or email helpdesk@conceptelevators.co.uk to find out more.
