Social landlords are being asked to raise stock condition and energy performance at the same time, against ageing homes, stretched budgets and tenants already struggling to heat what they have. In Wales, the Welsh Housing Quality Standard 2023 took effect in April 2024 and must be met across every social home by 2034. Welsh Government figures put full compliance at 48% as at 31 March 2025, which gives some sense of the volume still to come. In England, Awaab’s Law has applied to the social rented sector since October 2025, and from 30 November 2026 its duties extend to a wider set of hazards including excess cold. Heating repair and replacement now sits inside a statutory timescale.

None of that is what keeps an asset manager awake. The worry is what happens in the homes. Missed appointments and no-access properties that stall a programme. Residents who will not let anyone in because the last contractor left a mess. Complaints reaching the regulator before performance data reaches the board. Measures installed badly that come back as damp, as disrepair, or as a case in the press. A retrofit programme can meet every target on the spreadsheet and still fail, if the people living through it are treated as a delivery problem.

Our teams complete more than 140,000 property visits a year, and that is where resident liaison is learned rather than written into a method statement. Appointments are made and kept, vulnerable residents identified before mobilisation rather than at the door, no-access properties chased and rebooked rather than reported as a statistic, and homes left as they were found. Where a heating system comes out, temporary provision keeps the household warm. Every measure follows the same documented process, with audit trails, defect rectification and commissioning recorded at each stage, so what reaches your board or your regulator is evidence rather than assurance.