We’re Transforming urbanbubble For The Better
It’s a bit of a misconception amongst clients and customers that we’re growing rapidly. We’d like to assure you that this isn’t the case; we are not currently actively looking for new blocks, in order to consolidate our business and implement structural changes.
To give you an understanding of where we are as an organisation, we wanted to take a moment to tell you about our recent developments and how we’re transforming urbanbubble for the better.
Planning for future growth
In 2013, we were taking on 400 new apartments every quarter; those days are gone. This year, the only site we’ve taken on so far is Ringley Locks. Despite the wave of new developers and developments coming to Manchester, we are not open for business.
Thanks to some fantastic wins, we are in the fortunate position of not needing to proactively look for business. We have every new customer we need to keep us busy over the next five years, with a portfolio of 6,500 units across Manchester and phenomenal growth across Liverpool.
Most of the leading new schemes we are working on will come on-stream in mid-2019. We are working closely with the following clients to support in the delivery of circa 6500 homes across Manchester City Centre and Salford. Salboy’s will provide 1100 homes across three schemes all of which are phenomenal developments with beautiful outdoor spaces, due to launch during 2019. In addition to this Property Alliance will be providing 800 homes. Capital and Centric with 500 homes and DTZi with a further 150 homes currently under construction on Blossom Street located next to the popular and sought after Northern Quarter.
We continue to work with Legal & General operating The Slate Yard scheme in Salford and can proudly announce that we will be supporting L&G with their expansion of BtR reaching outside of the North West, taking urbanbubble National with their second BtR scheme of circa 170 homes in Bath which is scheduled to be ready for occupation towards the end of Q4 2018 to the beginning of Q1 2019. Bristol, Leeds and London following closely after providing just over 3000 homes by 2020. As such, we will be using this year to transform the business so that we can continue to deliver against our objectives when these homes ae ready for occupation.
Structural changes at urbanbubble
To ensure that we are able to maintain and improve service levels, we have developed a well-articulated three-year business plan that details how we intend to grow and adapt to change. As part of this, we have created a mobilisation team, which is being led by our very own Tina Clinton is made up of 2 x Mobilisation / Asset Managers Leanne Hargreaves (currently General Manager of The Slate Yard, Manchester) & Kate Barnes (currently Senior Property Manager, Manchester) who will be supported by 2 x Mobilisation / Asset support roles Rowan Moore has transferred from our Liverpool team where he was previously working as Assistant Property Manager and Emily Worswick who is new to the urbabubble family.
Alongside these changes, we are also delighted to announce that Andrea Hall (née Wilkinson), who joined us as an Assistant Property Manager five years ago, and was promoted two years ago to PM, has now taken the helm as a Senior Property Manager.
It’s fantastic to be able to provide progression and development opportunities for the team as a business – congratulations to all for your success so far in 2018.
In the same transition, Nathan Yates (Property Manager), who came on board without a background in property and has been with us for two years, has secured a promotional position with a new organisation. Whilst we’re sad to see him go, we wish him the best of luck. We’re very proud that our talent is going on to progress in the industry.
Our updated portfolio structure
As you can see, there’s been a bit of a shuffle around at urbanbubble; we’ve decided to play to our strengths and have developed a new portfolio structure as a result. By now, clients should have received a message from their current Senior Property Manager with more details, but portfolios will now be led by three SPMs – Steve Austin, Andrea Hall and Anthony Donnellan. They will each be supported by a PM – Stuart Prescott, Chris Lawrence and Michael Kowalczyk.
You’ll receive full details of the timetable of these changes if you haven’t already, although most will retain their portfolios to ensure no expertise is lost. In any case, these changes won’t take effect until June, as we’re keen to ensure that all moves are done right and consistently.
To support these changes we have recruited a Business Analyst, dedicated to improving systems and processes. This year, we will be releasing a new system to allow residents and owner occupiers to engage with us via an app, so we can easily communicate with everyone who has a property in a scheme we manage. We’re expecting to see really good progress on this and will provide more updates after Easter.
A new Director of Property Management
Finally, we’ve had a tremendous response in terms of applications to the new role of Director of Property Management. This individual will be leading the SPM team and must demonstrate passion for customers, not just technical experience in block management.
We have a very strong, high-calibre shortlist of three candidates and will be announcing the successful candidate in due course, ahead of them joining the urbanbubble team in the summer of 2018. The first priority for the director of property will be to meet every single one of our property clients and start developing strong relationships with both our SPMs and stakeholders, we can’t wait for you to meet our new recruits, we are doing everything we can to ensure that our customers remain at the forefront of everything we do.
