Christmas 2015 newsletter

So, what’s affected the housing sector this year?

Lets face it George Osborne’s Summer Budget was a biggie’ – while the measures set to be introduced by the Chancellor are not entirely clear, the social housing sector’s response also continues to develop.  Many organisations grasped the magnitude of the shift change in their operating environments and sought advice from our senior team in order to help in responding. We relished the challenge of creating a ‘think differently’ and ‘working smarter’ environment.

The introduction of the Principal Designer had a big impact on some, so we took a look at what this really meant for social housing clients and provided in-house seminars to embed this new learning and answer questions and concerns

Awesome Appointments

This year we have made some major key appointments such as Gary Bampton as commercial director, Lee Woods as operations director, Tom Byers as divisional director of compliance, Ben Parkinson as senior building surveyor and Shirley Quinn leading our operations in Scotland, to name just a few. They are all fantastic additions to our expert team and will help us to provide a more extensive service to our clients

Projects to be proud of

Our brilliant team won some very interesting projects this year; I wish I could name them all but we will be here until 2017! The ones that stood out in particular for me were;

• Winning the quality assurance auditing for Warmer Homes Scotland
• Symphony Housing Group appointed us on a 4 year contract to exclusively provide asbestos surveying, analytical and consultancy services to all of their 7 Group Member Organisations
• And following a competitive tender process, we were delighted to be appointed by Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust (APPCT) to undertake asbestos consultancy services work.

Celebrations

• Being nominated for Supplier of the Year at the Housing excellence awards 2015. Although we didn’t win it was an honour to be shortlisted, fingers crossed for 2016!
• Receiving a Smarter Planning Champion award from Planning Portal. Our contribution helped the Planning Portal achieve their highest ever monthly total of 46,375 applications received in March.
• As a company we celebrated 15 years of success. This summer Pennington Choices Ltd turned 15, and what an epic journey it has been. To celebrate we took a couple of days out of the business to bond, have fun and discover our direction for the next 15.
• We have recently received the happy news that Luke Rowlands, once one of our graduate building surveyors, has passed his APC to become a MRICS Chartered Building Surveyor – Well done Luke, what a brilliant achievement after all your hard work.
• We launched our at home asbestos sampling kits designed for homeowners and trades people to safely take asbestos samples on a small scale. The product was quickly featured in Sarah Beenys At Home magazine.
• Our team has taken part in some incredible charity work this year, but the stand out event has to be the ‘Pennington Peakies’ taking on the 3 Peaks Challenge. The brave team of 6 raised £2000 for Barnabus homelessness charity.
• Pennington Choices India PVT was incorporated this year to support our business and provide services for our clients

So what’s happening in 2016?

"We’re evolving, there’s no denying it, and that’s an exciting prospect!"

• After moving to larger premises in late 2014, our head office will be moving again to accommodate our ever growing team (luckily its only next door!).
• The Pennington Peakies’ have recruited more team members; they are taking on the Yorkshire 3 peaks in June 2016 raising money for Ava's Walking wish.
• We will be launching Pennington Resourcing – a property industry recruitment and talent placement service.
• Our charity of the year will be Warrington Disability Partnership.
• In 2015 we entered the Sunday Times Top 100 best company’s awards, the results are yet to come but we know they will drive our approach to employee engagement and provide focus for areas for improvement.

Thanks for a wonderful year of business and partnership. We hope to be your choice in 2016 and beyond!