Twelve win £500m Toon housing deal

Twelve contractors have unlocked a £500m housing improvement bonanza in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Potentially the biggest-ever deal of its kind, the project involves upgrading 32,000 council homes and is being rolled out by Your Homes Newcastle, an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) owned by the city council.
The delighted dozen are: Wates; Frank Haslam Milan; Mansell; Mears; Straightline; Gordon Durham; Lovell; Morrison; Rok; Kendall Cross; Turney Wylde; and City Build - the council's in-house construction team.
The six-year scheme will kick off with £89m-worth of modernisation work to be shared out between the contractors.
But the rest of the work is subject to the government stumping up the appropriate finds.
This, in turn, depends on the ALMO clocking up a two-star rating when it is examined by the Audit Commission by the end of this month.
The work is to bring the homes up to the government's 2010 Decent Homes Standard. A survey of council houses carried out in 2001 revealed that 80% of council homes are below par.
The work needed includes windows to 20,000 homes, improved wiring to more than 25,000 properties, and providing 20,000 houses with new kitchens. In addition, 25,000 homes
will benefit from improved
insulation.
The city-wide programme of improvements covers 350 estates and will be spread over three phases to coincide with the allocation of government funds.
A total of 56 outfits originally expressed interest in the Newcastle scheme, with 26 of those invited to submit tenders.
The list was whittled down to the final 12 by a 21-strong technical team and a panel of tenants.
Your Homes Newcastle chief executive John Lee said: "This is a significant investment in the region's construction industry and we hope it will
create new jobs in the North East."