Help-Link delivers as business heats up

HELP-LINK, a Yorkshire central heating and maintenance company, has completed the first part of its largest central heating boiler servicing contract.

More than 7,800 local authority owned homes across the region have all been inspected and repaired by the company’s 130 engineers.

Castleford-based Help-Link was awarded the three-year deal, worth £2.9m a year, from a collaborative procurement programme managed by the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC).

The company recently completed its first year of the work, delivering annual gas servicing and provision of landlord safety certificates for 3,885 properties in Harrogate, 2,400 in Selby and 1,600 in Richmondshire.

Help-Link’s managing director Mel Butler said: “It really is down to the fantastic effort of all our engineers and support staff. Without their dedication and flexibility we wouldn’t have achieved the impressive results we have.

“One of the biggest challenges we face is gaining access to properties so that we can check tenants’ boilers. Most other maintenance companies report a 90-95% success rate, ours is 100%.”

Mr Butler says the company has seen business soar in the last year, a result of a surge in work for domestic properties as well as local authorities.

“A lot of our work has come from the private sector, as people are worried about the rise in fuel prices and realise that a new boiler can save them a great deal on heating bills.

“The demand has come simply from people needing to make savings on their gas bills, as companies like British Gas have hiked up their prices.”

Mr Butler said turnover for August is expected to be around £1.6m and the company is targeting a £14.5m turnover for the year to September, up from £9.5m in the same period last year.

The business is aiming to push through to a £30m turnover next year.

Help-Link launched 13 years ago and now employs around 250 staff.