The Comhar Housing Consortium – Oaklee Housing, Choice Housing Ireland, Macquarie Capital and John Sisk & Sons – signed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract in March 2019 to deliver 534 social housing properties across six sites and five different local authorities in Dublin and surrounding counties.

The first site was due to be handed over in March 2020, so we spent the preceding 12 months preparing for what we expected would be an extraordinarily busy period. So how did the consortium do and what impact has the COVID-19 pandemic had on the project?

Mobilising the team

Oaklee Housing is an Approved Housing Body (AHB) and our role in the consortium is to deliver tenancy management and community development services, while Choice Services is responsible for facilities management. To manage the repairs and maintenance for these properties once they were completed, we planned to work closely together.

Key to this was the appointment of an operations manager to lead the new Comhar FM team. This is a subsidiary of Choice Group specifically set up for the project, delivering tenancy services, community development and facilities management. This team continues to grow as the sites come into management and includes the key trades required for housing maintenance.

In addition to working group meetings for Comhar FM, other important measures included:

• managing any planning and compliance issues with external parties;
• weekly internal tenancy management and facility management meetings;
• intensive engagement with the relevant local authorities on tenant allocations, as the homes neared completion.

This preparation has made sure that the Comhar FM team was fully equipped and ready to go when the first site was handed over in March this year. As schemes have neared completion we hired the people that were required to deliver on the agreed and ongoing service and delivery plans.