Sewell Group has announced its investment in Community Ventures Partnerships as part of its ‘strategic growth plans’ across the North of England, allowing it to expand its footprint in estates management consultancy.
Community Ventures is a development company that develops, builds, and manages health and social care facilities across the north of England and Midlands, as well as providing estates advisory services to the public sector and management services to LIFT companies.
The two Yorkshire-based businesses share many of the same values, and the new partnership will allow both companies to broaden their capabilities and realise their continued growth.
Community Ventures’ leadership and day-to-day business operations will remain with CEO, Nigel Fenny, supported by Commercial director, Dean Spencer, and the current Executive Team. Jo Barnes, managing director, Sewell Estates, and Dave Leedham, director, Sewell Investments, will join the Board alongside the current director team. Phil Harris, director of Community Ventures’ majority shareholder Galliford Try Investments, said: “We welcome the Sewell Group’s investment in the business. Community Ventures has gone from strength to strength in the last few years, and we are confident that this investment heralds the next exciting period of growth for the business. We look forward to working alongside our new colleagues.”
A multidisciplinary group of companies operating across the North of England, Sewell Group has a long history dating back to 1876, and this year was recognised as one of only 18 businesses across the country in the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise for Promoting Opportunity – the most prestigious accolade for UK businesses.
Sewell Estates – a collective of built environment businesses that work with customers to deliver long term value for their communities -- is made up of:
- Sewell Investments – invests in and develops estates and regeneration projects. Joint Ventures include Hull Citycare, Hull Esteem, York Schools, and Yorkshire Energy Park;
- Sewell Construction – delivers construction projects for public sector and commercial clients across Yorkshire and the Humber;
- Sewell Facilities Management – delivers total FM services, including statutory compliance, planned and reactive maintenance, for public sector customers across Yorkshire;
- Shared Agenda Solutions – a specialist estates consultancy operating UK-wide, with ‘a broad complement of expertise across strategic property advice, business case development, and delivery management’;
- Parallel Data Intelligence – A web application development company specialising in interactive mapping and data visualisation for Public Health England, the NHS, and local authorities;
- Illingworth and Gregory – a West Yorkshire-based contractor delivering refurbishments, design and build contracts, maintenance, and extensions.
Community Ventures began life as the private sector partner in a number of public-private partnerships created under the NHS’s Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme in England. The national initiative was launched in 2001, and since 2004 has collaborated with public sector partners to successfully develop, build, and manage health and social care facilities in communities throughout the north of England. It says its ‘mission’ is to invest in health and social care infrastructure within local communities, ‘providing the highest quality services and facilities to help our partners maintain and enhance the health and social care they provide’.
