Most universities have a great deal of building stock to maintain and this can be a significant challenge for any organisation. Although many institutions are investing heavily in new builds, much of this infrastructure was built during the 20th century, particularly the 60s and 70s. Indeed, in some older establishments there are buildings that hail from Victorian times.

All this means that universities need to carry out regular planned maintenance in order to keep the existing infrastructure up to date and working to capacity. Failure from old systems may mean that you must suddenly shut down certain parts of a building to undertake emergency repairs. For many universities, this can mean juggling limited resources and trying to find the finances to deal with problems that arise.

At Hightown, we’ve had 40 years’ experience of delivering quality maintenance programs for institutions such as universities. While many organisations have their own maintenance staff on site, to deal with the day to day running of the buildings, having the necessary breadth of qualifications and skills on board can be costly.

The solution is to bring on board a company that can deliver a planned maintenance program and provide the fully trained operatives who can help deliver on it as when needed. At Hightown, our focus on quality and delivering the programs that universities really need has been part of our provision for many years. We work closely with all stakeholders to make sure that their business can operate at full functionality.

The cost of not undertaking regular planned maintenance can be catastrophic for organisations such as universities. When infrastructure fails it can lead to areas of buildings being closed off and have a significant impact on teaching, learning and research. It can also be a lot costlier in terms of repairs.

We have the top-quality management process in place, backed up with an excellent health and safety record. We are always keen to make sure we have the right operatives in place to deal with any situation and our teams are geared towards making sure the preventative maintenance that is needed is carried out in a timely manner. This often involves working on areas while the business of a university is still carrying on, which means we need to pay special attention to areas such as health and safety.

As a building and construction firm we hold a wide range of industry certifications and believe in investing in the training of our committed staff. Using a third-party company to handle your maintenance needs means that you have much greater access to the skills and technical knowledge that you need at any one time. It simply makes sense and negates the requirement to have those individuals employed at great cost on site 100% of the time.

In the past, Hightown have worked with major institutions such as Liverpool John Moores University, helping to deliver quality maintenance programs that reduce the potential for future large-scale problems. That ability to work closely with stakeholders to develop the best solutions has helped us to reduce maintenance costs and prevent catastrophic events that can have an enormous impact on the day to day running of any particular organisation.