SUSTAINABILITY

FEATURES
CarillionAmey joins forces
to enhance military communities
CarillionAmey (CA) provides support
services on behalf of the Defence
Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) to
the MOD across the four UK Regional
Prime Contracts and the National
Housing Prime Contract. Prior to this,
CA delivered the former Regional
Prime Contract in the Central Region
as CarillionEnterprise. It was also the
previous supplier to the Housing Prime
Contract under the guise of MODern
Housing Solutions (MHS).
Outlined here is some of the significant
investment made by MHS in providing
a positive contribution to military
communities and a look ahead to the
new contracts and how this work will
evolve to meet the changing needs of
our military and their communities.
The Beginning
As MHS, CA always took its role in
the military community seriously;
although its core responsibility was to
maintain and deliver improvements
to the housing estate, there are many
early examples of community based
projects, with staff and suppliers
going ‘above and beyond’ to improve
service family environments. Typically,
these were engineered on the back
Fantastic flowers at Didcot © Rosie Brown
RAF Benson allotments © Rosie Brown
of refurbishment and upgrade works
using the leverage and enthusiasm of
both MHS staff and suppliers.
However, it was not until 2011 that
MHS’s Community Programme
really started to gather momentum.
This drive arrived in the shape
of a dedicated lead to manage
a programme of play parks and
community based projects. Enter Rosie
Brown who was able to identif y worthy
projects for MHS to support.
Community Needs
Using the benefit of Rosie’s excellent
military network, MHS was able to
engage with the service community
to understand what needed to be
done. For the first time MHS was able
to develop a genuine customer based
Community Needs Plan rather than
identif ying and delivering projects
which it thought would be valued.
Engaging Staff
Whilst a significant number of MHS staff
had been involved in early community
projects, in 2011, with a dedicated lead
and sustained campaigns to encourage
participation, wider enthusiasm started
to spread and engagement numbers
grew significantly. At the end of 2013,
half of MHS staff (approximately
200), had taken part in a community
project in the previous 12 months. In
2014, a busy year spent delivering an
unexpectedly high volume of project
work and preparing for the Next
Generation Estate Contracts (NGEC),
MHS came within a whisker of matching
that performance.
Engaging Suppliers
MHS’s engagement of its staff tells
only part of the success story. The
significant support from its supply
chain, many of whom gave time,
labour and materials and in some
cases, finance, ensured that ideas
could be realised.
The Projects
Undoubtedly, there are too many
individual projects to mention in
this article but arguably some do
stand out. Here, is just a snap shot of
community projects MHS were
able to support.
Didcot Kitchen Gardens
By engaging the BBC2 Gardeners
World team, providing labour, materials,
funding and effective liaison, a stunning
cut flower and vegetable garden was
created at a time when 11 Explosive
Ordnance Regiment (EOD) needed their
families to feel particularly valued.
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Sanctuary 44 • 2015