Unitas Stoke-on-Trent

25/04/2025

**Reminder**

Following our transition into the city council, this page will close on 1 May 2025. For all enquiries, updates and news about your repairs service, please follow Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Thank you.

31/03/2025

We’re in the last part of our countdown now.

S is for our friends at Staffordshire Fire and Rescue, with whom we’ve enjoyed a great working relationship. As well as using their skills and advice on our firestopping and detecting measures, we’ve supported their safety and training exercises, like the one shown here at Lady Bennet Court, Longton, in 2023.

S is also for Switchee. Thanks to our partnership with Switchee and funding from SHDF, we’ve installed Smart Thermostats in properties across the city. These not only help customers control their energy usage to maximum effect, but also help us gather information about the environment within the properties, giving us great data when it comes to planning new projects.

T is for Toolbox Talks; our monthly bitesize training sessions. These are delivered to every member of staff by their Line Manager, not only giving them great, up to date knowledge, but also ensuring teams have a chance to regularly meet and catch-up.

W is for Wellbeing – we’ve always been vocal about our passion for staff wellbeing. A happy, well supported team is a thriving team and our Wellbeing Team has given hours of their own time to put on charity events, cake sales, create a garden at our depot, our veg patch, yoga sessions, photography groups, and much much more!

It’s been a pleasure ❤

28/03/2025

Moving onwards, N is for Norton where we delivered a series of bungalow improvements in 2022. The works included roof renewals, window upgrades, new external doors, extractor fans and smoke alarms, repointing and loft insulation.

O is for Out of Hours. For seven years, our OOH Team has been on call 24/7 covering evenings, nights, bank holidays and Christmas breaks. They’ve amassed over 29,000 hours in service of our customers responding to boiler breakdowns, floods, fires and security issues, and it’s their diligence and empathy that we’re delighted to be taking into Stoke-on-Trent City Council

P is for the ICONIC Potters’ Arf. Ten of our Team have run the challenging 13.5 miles whilst our Governance Team came in second as walkers, raising money for our chosen charities and showcasing their athletic prowess!

P is also for Pride. Along with multiple businesses and organisations across the city, we love and support Stoke On Trent Pride and the community to support. We were thrilled to donate a Helping Hands grant and sponsor the Pride event in 2024.

R is for ROSPA. Our SHE Team has worked tirelessly throughout our time as Unitas to increase safety standards on our sites and depot. As a result, we’re officially four-times ROSPA Winners, winning ROSPA Silver in 2021 and ROSPA Gold in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

28/03/2025

Important update 🏠

From 1 April, our repairs and maintenance service (formerly Unitas) will be managed directly by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

This page will close on 1 May 2025. Please follow Stoke-on-Trent City Council social media accounts for all updates.

27/03/2025

With just five days to go until our transition, we’re celebrating some of the projects and work Unitas has been involved with.

K is for Kitchens. Did you know, we’ve installed 3704 kitchens in properties throughout Stoke-on-Trent?

L is for Longton Town Hall. In 2021, we were asked to help repair the broken flagpole at Longton Town Hall so that it could be used for Remembrance Day. Our Team (and a giant crane) worked overtime and as part of our CSR commitment to repair the pole at no cost to the council and at very short notice.

L is for Lord Mayors’ Charities – we’ve been delighted to support the various Lord Mayors’ charities. From volunteering a football team for a charity tournament raising money for The Hubb Foundation and Brighter Futures to giving money from our Helping Hands funds for Period Power and Emmaus North Staffs, it’s been an absolute pleasure. We also acted as a delivery service during 2020 for the Lord Mayor, taking donations to their chosen charities!
M is for Mental Health First Aiders – we have 12 of these incredible volunteers who’ve been trained to act as peer to peer support for our team. Our Mental Health First Aiders undergo a two-day training course to be able to listen and signpost their colleagues. All of our MHFA’s have agreed to continue supporting colleagues as we move into the City Council which is just AWESOME!

M is for Meet the Buyer; in 2023, we held an event for Contractors, in which we not only outlined some of the opportunities available to them via us and the City Council projects, but also delivered seminars on how to bid for the opportunities. We wanted to ensure that everyone had an opportunity to work with us, even if they weren’t used to bidding for work or didn’t have a dedicated Bid Writer. As a result, we have a diverse range of local businesses and specialists on our Framework, delivering high quality work for our customers.

26/03/2025

Here we go again:

E is for Environment: from a robust recycling policy and our focus on electric and hybrid vehicles to our staff litter picks, our focus has always been on the environment and we’re delighted to be merging our effort with the City Council’s priorities and focus.

E is also for Emma Bridgewater. In 2018, following a fire which damaged part of the main building on Lichfield Street, Unitas and a number of local partners worked as part of the rebuilding effort, getting the business open to staff and public as soon as possible.

F is for Fenton Manor Sports Complex; as part of our commitment to Stoke-on-Trent City Council public buildings, we’ve been responsible for compliance testing at Fenton Manor on a monthly basis since we first opened for business. In 2022, we also attended when damage to the wiring ribbons to the main seating area threatened to derail a large gymnastics event. Luckily, two of our Electricians were able to take on the complicated job, working overnight to repair it in time for the tumbling!

G is for Gas Safe: We’re proud to be Gas Safe and that every single one of our Gas Engineers is qualified and certified to the highest standards!

H is for Helping Hands; our charity funds. The Helping Hands funds are created from the sale of scrap metal from our various jobs. It’s then available for any charity or community group who can benefit Stoke-on-Trent. In our seven years, HH funds have helped Sports Teams, Environmental Projects, Community Centres, Theatre Groups, Safety Initiatives, and SO Much More!

I is for Ian Mountford BEM. Our very own Monty was awarded with a British Empire Medal for his voluntary work during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Monty was also invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace and won the Inspirational Employee at the 2021 Direct Works Awards – proud isn’t the word!

21/03/2025

Continuing with our celebration of Unitas…

C is for our Covid response. Our business changed significantly as a result of the Covid Pandemic. Although we continued with essential repairs and compliance, many of our team were redeployed to establish the emergency food delivery service from Fenton Manor Sports Complex. In addition, we worked with the Macari Centre to support the homeless population of the city, delivered food and medication and project managed the city’s vaccination centre, working alongside Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Public Health England.

One of the bigger, and often unsung, elements of our work is compliance. We’re responsible for ensuring that every property has gas, asbestos, electric and water certification and have solid records in all of these. We’re accredited by Gas Safe, NICEIC, CHAS and we’re approved Safe Contractors.

C is also for CSR. Our Corporate Social Responsibility has defined much of what we’ve done as Unitas. We’ve raised £17656.44 for charities including Cancer Research UK and Dougie Mac, we’ve given back £3,432,675.69 in CSR Value to our community, we’ve invested in 48 Apprentices and given 62 work experience placements with a further 9 planned for this year. We’ve given our £19,668.86 in Helping Hands funding grants. Our projects have included bird and bee houses, sports team sponsorship, facilities for community workshops, foodbanks, litter picks, Stoke Pride, after-school and school holiday schemes, wildlife and environmental projects and SO much more.

D is for DIY SOS where we worked with Fegg Hayes Futures and Direct Work Awards where our very own Ian Mountford was awarded Inspirational Employee of the Year and our team won second prize for their work on The Macari Centre and finally for our Drones, which have not only modernised our surveying ability and technique but have passed on masses of savings (and convenience) for our customers!

19/03/2025

With our transition into Stoke-on-Trent City Council imminent, we’re taking a fond look back at the work we’ve done as Unitas.
Starting with…

* Apprentices: We’ve taken on 44 and 42 of these remain in our business. They’ve won local and national awards, including the APSE National Apprentice of the Year and the Staffordshire Business Awards Apprentice of the Year, and they’re the leaders of tomorrow. We couldn’t be prouder

* APSE: Unitas has been shortlisted for awards from the Association of Public Service Excellence in 2020 (for our work on the Macari Centre) in 2023 (for our Apprentice, Nathan Heron) and won in 2024, (Apprentice of the Year for Brooke Chomyn).

* Aids and Adaptations: We’ve invested over £7 million in property adaptations and accessibility.

* Barks Drive: Our Environmental Work on this row won us an INCA Award

* Bucknall New Road: We delivered over £2million worth of work to 104 apartments, creating safe, comfortable and environmentally sound homes for our customers

* Bungalows: We’ve improved roofs, windows, doors, kitchens and bathrooms in bungalows across the city as well as investing heavily into environmental improvements which save our customers money on their energy costs!

17/03/2025

Our CSR Coordinator Rachel was invited by Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Careers Hub to give a talk to 4,000 local school children at their “Meet the Apprentice” Webinar.

Thank you so much for having us, and for this lovely feedback. Rachel had the best time

13/03/2025

We’re always looking to invest in new technology and methods which increase productivity whilst helping our team work quickly and safely.

We recently welcomed Grabo to our depot who gave members of our Trades Teams, Unions and Management a demonstration into the functions and abilities of their multi-purpose Suction-Tool, for easy, safe lifting.

We’re also trialling Paddle Mixers for our Bricklayers giving them the benefit of quick, smooth, effortless mixing.

11/03/2025

🥳 Planning a Centenary or VE Day celebration?

We’ve got you covered… Approved applications for road closures won't need to pay the usual advertisement fee.

💻 You must email [email protected] with your road closure application by 18 April.

For more information on road closures connected to the Centenary or VE Day, please visit: https://sot100.org.uk/communities-grants.

08/03/2025

"Have the courage to break barriers to achieve success."

That's the message from one of our amazing team this

Read more words of wisdom (and nostalgia) from the Ladies of Unitas here:

We're celebrating and honouring International Women's Day with a Q&A with some of the Ladies of Unitas.