New company to provide Council property services

Published on 4 July 2022

From today (Monday 4 July) a new company, Alliance Norse, will be responsible for improving and maintaining the Borough Council's buildings - including the homes it rents to tenants and its public buildings.

The company, a partnership between Norse Commercial Services Ltd, High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, will provide repairs and maintenance across the Council's properties, caretaking and cleaning services, and deliver major investment projects. It will also work to offer an improved and enhanced housing repairs service.

Executive Councillor for Housing, Fiona Sloman, said: "We are always looking to improve the services we provide and one of the biggest benefits of this new partnership is the enhanced housing repairs service we will be able to offer.

"People booking repairs and gas services, or whose homes are being improved with new kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors, roofs or central heating and boiler replacement, will now be dealing directly with the people carrying out the service.

"Thanks for the modern, digital systems Alliance Norse will use our housing tenants will receive text messages and updates. It means we'll be able to deliver better communications from the start, which I know will be a very welcome improvement."

Tenants will still be able to report repairs online via the Council's website or by telephone, and the same staff will be carrying out this work as the team has transferred from the Council to Alliance Norse.

The Norse Group provides a wide range of facilities management, environmental services, care and property services to the public and private sectors - and is the largest Local Authority Trading Company in the country.

Leader of the Council, Councillor Anthony Mckeown, said: "As a Council, we constantly strive to provide efficient and effective services. We hope that our new joint venture will not only deliver these services to the highest quality, it will also offer ways to improve and enhance our existing service and expand the amount of work done directly rather than by external contractors.

"The Norse Group is an established, experienced provider of property services and facilities management, and we're delighted that High Peak can look forward to improved, more efficient, effective services through this new partnership."

Justin Galliford, Chief Executive of the Norse Group, said: "We're excited to be bringing our commercial flair and public sector ethos to the High Peak and the Staffordshire Moorlands.

"Our approach to service delivery with our public body partners is evolution, not revolution, to improve quality, efficiency and reliability, and we're looking forward to getting started!"