Three win share of £165m Midlands housing scheme

Three firms are to share in £165m-worth of housing work in the Midlands.

Mears, Connaught and Morrison will tackle the project, promoted by Midland Heart - the Birmingham-based organisation is one of the UK's top-ten housing and regeneration groups.

The contractors will enter into what is being called a "strategic partnership" with the client.

The job involves responsive repairs to Midland Heart's housing stock, which totals approximately 27,000 homes, as well as work on void e_SFlbproperties and an out-of-hours service.

The overall contract has been divided into eight packages.

The largest, estimated to be worth £22m-plus, takes in more than 4,000 homes in the Wolverhampton area and will be tackled by Mears.

The firm will also work on package two, which centres on Tamworth, involves 3,000-plus units and weighs in at around £17m.

Connaught will be involved in the three South Midland area packages.

The largest of these involves nearly 4,000 properties, centres on Coventry, and is worth £20m-plus.

Connaught's other areas are Leicester (nearly £14m) and work on 2,000 supported housing units in the South Midland area, worth £14m-plus.

Morrison has been earmarked for the Birmingham area, with its largest package of work covering 3,000-plus homes in Moseley in a deal worth more than £20m.

Morrison's other Birmingham locations are Handsworth and Erdington, each covering 2,000 units and weighing in at £14m-plus apiece.

A project source said: "At least 70 firms initially applied for the Midland Heart scheme. Projects like this always get a huge response from the industry because they're lucrative and represent years of guaranteed work."