Tony started his career with seven years at a local authority in the North West. In more than 40 years since, he has worked mainly on the client side of commissioning and delivery, including 28 years at Director or Executive Director level. That experience has shaped his view that successful delivery is not a series of one-off projects. Instead, it rests on long-term relationships built on trust, consistency and a clear understanding of what public sector partners are trying to achieve.
Across the Midlands, housing providers and local authorities need partners who understand that all types of capital improvement work are connected. Building new homes is not enough if existing homes are not safe, modern and well maintained. Long-term asset strategies also depend on partners who understand viability, resident priorities, governance pressures and the realities of working in occupied homes.
Tony says landlords want a partner who accepts that large-scale capital improvement works are complex and that priorities can change with the economy and the political agenda. True partnership comes from understanding those realities and adapting to them.
That approach is at the heart of how Seddon works. The business works as an extension of its clients’ teams, not simply as a contractor brought in to deliver a package of works.
In the Midlands, Seddon has built lasting relationships with:
- Platform Housing Group (two years)
- Citizen Housing (eight years)
- Sandwell Council (10 years)
- Warwick District Council (three years)
This work has included new homes, kitchen, bathroom and fire door replacements, fire safety programmes, retrofit, remodelling and conversion.
With Sandwell Council, recent schemes at Crosswell Road and St Vincent’s turned two underused and constrained brownfield sites into 20 new affordable homes for social rent. Working together from pre-construction through to handover, the partnership overcame contamination, utility diversions and viability challenges to unlock schemes that might otherwise have stalled. In March, Sandwell said its close work with Seddon was helping to reduce its repairs backlog, with more than 95 per cent of emergency repairs carried out within 24 hours.
For Platform, Seddon has delivered 49 affordable homes at Winsmore in Powick, alongside significant capital improvement works and fire safety programmes across the Midlands.
For Tony, being the right partner means understanding funding models, from traditional arrangements through to joint ventures, and working collaboratively with local authorities, registered providers and their advisers. It also means bringing experience across general needs housing, regeneration and extra care. Above all, it means giving clients confidence that their partner will still be there, adding value and solving problems, long after the first appointment.
As Tony puts it, real confidence “is earned not through promises in a bid, but through the strength of the partnerships you build and the outcomes you consistently deliver.”
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