Month: December 2020

Fast growing Facilities Management company, The Westgrove Group, has secured a 5-year partnership with Touchwood Shopping Centre in Solihull and highlights its move into the TFM market place.

The contract, valued over £10M, will see the company delivering cleaning, security, concierge and hard services such as reactive and planned maintenance. The award follows a competitive tender process which involved a number of market leading facilities management companies.

Claire Mckinley-Smith, Managing Director at The Westgrove Group says “We are delighted to start a proactive partnership with the team at Touchwood. As well as welcoming over 50 new colleagues into our business, we are looking forward to working with a dynamic management team on site who share our core values. We pride ourselves on the quality of our customer service, the flexibility we can provide and the introduction of new services and technologies.”

The exciting partnership, brings together Westgrove and Touchwood Shopping Centre which is owned by Lendlease Retail LP and managed by property management group Workman. Located in Solihull’s attractive metropolitan borough, Touchwood Shopping Centre opened in 2001 and combines a stylish retail offering with civic gardens providing green space for the community to enjoy.

General Manager, Tony Elvin, says, “Our new partnership with The Westgrove Group is exciting. Throughout the pandemic we have been focusing on ensuring Touchwood is a safe retail and leisure environment, prioritising the health and wellbeing of our guests, retailers and staff.  We are delighted to be working now with Westgrove and together whilst maintaining that critical safe environment aim to drive our guest service, community interaction and team engagement to even greater heights.”

Westgrove provide security, cleaning, maintenance and customer service to shopping centres and mixed-use destinations, corporate offices, business parks and airports throughout the UK.  Following a successful 22-year history, the company has expanded in 2020 to add hard services to enhance its well-established award-winning soft services provision. 

The Westgrove Group has also recently secured contracts with Morgan Quarter in Cardiff and Kings Chase Shopping Centre in Bristol. The company, based in Warrington, was founded by Group Chairmen Simon Whittle and Steve Fives.

Fast growing facilities management company, The Westgrove Group, is pushing to make its business virtually chemical free by the end of 2021.

Westgrove has already rolled out the use of the Lotus Pro to over 20 of its sites in the UK with impressive financial and environmental benefits.

The company, based in Warrington, is seeing outstanding results across its portfolio from the environmentally friendly ‘Lotus Pro’ cleaning system which coverts normal tap water into a highly effective cleaner and sanitiser for up to 24 hours.

The system, which uses a standard water and power supply, injects an electrical charge into tap water. As a result, the water becomes a very efficient cleaning agent whilst also killing 99.99% of viruses and bacteria. 

In a case study conducted at its Haymarket Shopping Centre in Leicester, the site saw an 80% cost saving on cleaning products, a reduction in PPE requirements and the removal of any associated risks to colleagues by using chemicals. The centre reduced their plastic waste due to a lack of chemical bottles and containers on site and as a result helped them gain their third consecutive RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) Gold Award.   

A further benefit has been helping the centre to be Covid safe by killing viruses on all surfaces. By carrying out before and after ‘touchpoint tests’ has made it possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Lotus Pro. 

Steve Allen, Westgrove’s Site Manager at Haymarket Shopping Centre says, “The Lotus Pro has been a massive success for our cleaning operation, but undoubtedly, the most dramatic advance for us has been the chance to conduct swab testing and actually being able to see the results of our cleaning and to be able to show the team that their work is producing tangible results”

Westgrove use the swab tests to evidence levels of sanitisation and found low levels, proving the use of the Lotus Pro as an intrinsic part to all its centres cleaning operations.  ATP Swab Testing is used to measure levels of Adenosine Triphosphate, an organic compound found in all forms of life. At Haymarket results are between 5 and 11 which is classed as ultra-clean to very clean and is recommended for all touchpoints.

Claire Mckinley-Smith, Managing Director, said, “It has been vital in the era of Covid-19 to be able to demonstrate and evidence our cleaning and sanitisation routines, and to have reassurance that we are doing all that we possibly can to maintain a safe environment for our teams and for the customers”.

The Westgrove Group, which recently celebrated its 22^nd anniversary, was founded by Group Chairmen Simon Whittle and Steve Fives. Based in Warrington, Cheshire, Westgrove employs over 1000 colleagues and specialises in providing security, cleaning, customer services and maintenance services in high footfall destinations such as shopping centres and mixed-use destinations, corporate offices, business parks and airports throughout the UK.