Notting Hill Genesis has appointed 15 contractors to its Notting Hill Genesis voids framework, a £500 million programme covering refurbishment work on empty homes across Greater London and potentially elsewhere in the UK.
The framework, formally titled the Empty Homes (Voids) Refurbishment Works Framework, was procured through a restricted process. Every one of the 15 firms that submitted a tender was appointed to the single-lot contract, according to the contract award notice published on Gov.uk Find a Tender. Twelve of the 15 appointed contractors were classed as SMEs.
Scope and energy-efficiency obligations under the Notting Hill Genesis voids framework
The programme covers refurbishment work across all building trades and may include work to adjacent communal areas. Its scope extends to asbestos surveys, removal and encapsulation, energy performance certificates, energy-efficiency improvements and landlord gas safety checks. Contractors may also carry out boiler replacements, electrical installation condition reports and associated remedial work.
The inclusion of energy performance certificates and energy-efficiency improvements is telling in the context of the social housing stock. Empty homes that return to use in improved condition carry lower operational carbon loads than properties cycled back with no fabric or system upgrade, and the explicit scope for boiler replacements and electrical condition work suggests Notting Hill Genesis intends to use void periods as an intervention point rather than simply a turnaround exercise.
The framework was awarded on a 60:40 quality-to-price weighting, a balance that in principle gives contractors room to differentiate on the quality of their delivery rather than competing on cost alone.
Framework duration, availability and the wider voids pipeline
According to Notting Hill Genesis, the framework initially runs until April 2028. However, Axis Europe, one of the appointed contractors, describes the arrangement on its own site as a four-year Empty Homes (Voids) Refurbishment Works Framework covering 2025 to 2029. The two sources differ on the end date, and Notting Hill Genesis has not publicly reconciled the discrepancy.
Notting Hill Genesis confirmed the framework will also be available to other authorised users beyond its own portfolio, including registered social landlords, councils and arm’s-length management organisations. That open-access structure means the effective pipeline could grow considerably beyond the headline £500 million figure depending on call-off activity by third-party users.
The full list of appointed contractors is: Arc Group London, Axis Europe, Buildtrust, Cardo (South), CBM Group, Chigwell (London), Greyline Group, Hollington and Sons (Builders) trading as Olli Group/Olli Construction, KBH Building Services, Lura Constructions, MNM Property Services, PILON, Power Building Services, R Benson Property Maintenance, and Saltash Enterprises.
Policy backdrop: councils and empty homes repossession powers
The contract award notice was issued during the Labour Party conference, where prime minister Andy Burnham pledged to give councils greater powers to repossess empty homes. The convergence of that policy signal and a £500 million refurbishment framework underlines the direction of travel: bringing vacant stock back into use, and doing so to a standard that addresses both habitability and energy performance.
For the social housing sector, voids represent one of the more tractable opportunities to improve stock condition without the complexity of occupied-property retrofit programmes. Each void is, in effect, a controlled environment where asbestos remediation, fabric upgrades and system replacements can be carried out without displacement. Whether Notting Hill Genesis’s energy-efficiency scope translates into meaningful reductions in the energy intensity of returned stock will depend on how ambitiously individual call-off contracts are specified by authorised users drawing on the framework.
The framework’s next milestone is its initial expiry in April 2028, as stated by Notting Hill Genesis, at which point the volume and quality of work delivered across its participating contractors will offer the first substantive measure of the programme’s contribution to both housing supply and stock decarbonisation.
