Midlands operation boosts profits for Wates Group

Project name: Wates Construction Birmingham Corporate Portraits|| Location: Birmingham|| Description: Corporate Portraits of Wates Construction Birmingham people

Construction group, Wates has reported a 20.4% increase in 2016 turnover to £1.53bn, aided by a strong performance from its Midlands operation.

The company, currently building the Regal (West Point) Left Bank residential tower off Broad Street, ended 2016 with a forward order book of £3.6bn and reported a pre-tax profit increase of 17.1% to £35.5m.

Wates, which employs more than 700 people in the Midlands, also oversees the maintenance of 31,000 homes on behalf of Birmingham City Council. In fact, Birmingham is home to its largest housing maintenance fleet.

Last year, more than 260 operatives were deployed to carry out 90,000 housing repairs on behalf of the local authority.

Midlands highlights in 2016 included Wates Construction’s appointment to build Ardstone Capital’s refurbishment of Phoenix House in Birmingham and Audley Retirement’s £28m Ellerslie development in Great Malvern.

Throughout the year, Wates also oversaw the delivery of a range of projects via the East Midlands Property Alliance (empa) framework, on which it has held positions for the Intermediate (£2.5m-£7.5m) and Provincial (£500k-£7.5m) frameworks since January 2014.

Throughout 2016, Wates had a total of 2,000 new homes either completed or under construction, 157 of which are being built by Wates Residential at Butler’s Crescent at the Dudley Guest Hospital site, opposite the Black Country Living Museum.

Successes for the business in 2016 included the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development for its industry-leading Reshaping Tomorrow framework for socio-economic sustainability.

Phil Harrison, managing director, Wates Construction Midlands & North, said: “2016 has been a successful year for Wates. The drive for economic growth in the Midlands, supported by the Government’s Midlands Engine strategy has opened up some exceptional development opportunities in both the East and West Midlands.

“Wates has a very well established reputation for quality and innovation across the Midlands and our continued work with the East Midlands Property Alliance in particular has enabled us to mature our expertise in delivering value for money for the public sector. Complementing this is our growth in the private residential and commercial markets, which have seen renewed confidence in 2016.”

David Morgan, Managing Director of Wates Living Space, added: “2016 saw the launch of one of the largest housing maintenance programmes in Europe and this excellent work with Birmingham City Council is really setting the bar for the level of service that can be delivered for our social landlord clients.

“The growth of the Wates Living Space team throughout 2016 has propelled our business further forward as a leader in affordable housing maintenance services in the UK.”

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