Kier’s M&E specialists land £8m Hampshire County Council contract

Kier Building Services Engineers (KBSE), part of the Kier Group, has won a contract to maintain mechanical and electrical services for Hampshire County Council, worth £8m over five years.

Providing both planned and reactive M&E maintenance, the contract starts August 1, covering the eastern side of the county, from Farnborough down to Havant and Hayling Island, at a value of £1.6m a year.

This latest award boosts the Basingstoke-based company’s annual turnover in public sector work to approaching £18m. Its current list of local authorities includes Portsmouth City, West Berkshire District, plus the counties of Cornwall and Hertfordshire.

Overall, KBSE’s service and maintenance arm looks after the premises of more than 80 private and public sector clients, including around 100 fire stations, training centres and offices for the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, plus various national and regional police forces, including around 240 premises throughout the Sussex Police area.

The new award from Hampshire County Council embraces well over 300 properties, including schools and educational buildings, leisure centres, social services offices, emergency services, libraries, museums and special community facilities, such as Outward Bound centres.

“We are absolutely delighted to have this opportunity,” said KBSE operations director Rob Baker. “We shall be jointly managing the M&E budget in partnership with the county’s management team for all M&E reactive & planned maintenance across the eastern area. This is a successful working model that is being looked at by our other clients.”

As well as providing 24/7 reactive call-out services, KBSE’s contract covers all planned maintenance requirements, such as annual appliance inspections. The work ranges from security and smoke/fire alarms to boilers and combustion systems, from swimming pool plant to kitchen catering equipment.

KBSE is aiming to deploy over 20 dedicated field and administrative workers to support the contract. While some will be drawn from TUPE transfer of existing contract staff and the redeployment of locally-based Kier personnel, there will be potential for external recruitment to build up a local workforce.