R3 Repairs Limited, East Lothian Housing Association (ELHA) repairs and maintenance arm, is now trading.

Initially providing services to Manor Estates and tenants, R3 will also provide a full maintenance service to Melville Housing Association from September 2010. By 2011, R3 will provide services to other businesses and private homeowners across East Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh City.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary, but in what is believed to be a unique arrangement in the housing sector, R3 intends to gift aid some of its profits to both Manor Estates and Melville Housing Associations who are recognised as ‘founder partners’ in the project.

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ELHA's Chief Executive, Martin Pollhammer, said: “In order to succeed in establishing the maintenance company we needed more work for the company than ELHA alone could provide. ELHA takes 100% of the risk in setting up the company, but in bringing sufficient capacity to the table, our founder partners help make the company happen, and should therefore share in the reward.

"Now we have the basic capacity we need, we believe we can grow R3 Repairs rapidly, and we hope with that, we will share increasing profits. This shows what can happen when housing associations come to the table to work together without compromising their independence in any way, and how we are looking to bring in new income streams to support our charitable aims.”

Lynn McDonald, Director of Manor Estates Housing Association added: “We are delighted to be joining with ELHA in this exciting project. We’re also pleased to see that R3 has got off to a flying start, with our repairs backlog gone only 3 days into trading, and most repairs now completed within 2 to 3 days. It’s not just about money, our primary drivers for getting involved were around quality and service, and already R3 is exceeding expectations in this regard.”

(GK)