Regenda Unveils £428m Contractor Panel, North West Social Housing Sector Signals a Major Investment Cycle
- Michael Ghobrial
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Regenda, one of the North West’s most active housing associations, has announced the appointment of a large panel of contractors and consultants to a new £428 million construction works and services framework, established in partnership with Liverpool-based Rise Construction Framework. The four-year framework runs from 25 March 2026 to 24 March 2030 and covers construction, refurbishment and professional services across a broad geographic footprint spanning the North West of England, North Wales and Yorkshire. It is one of the largest housing sector frameworks to be launched in northern England this year, and its contractor list reads as a near-complete directory of the region’s most active tier-one and regional building firms.
Project Overview
Client/Contracting authority: Regenda Limited, Liverpool
Framework manager: Rise Construction Framework Ltd, acting as agent for Regenda
Total framework value: £428 million (excluding VAT); £513.6 million (including VAT)
Duration: Four years, 25 March 2026 to 24 March 2030
Framework type: Closed framework
Geographic coverage: Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester (North West England); Isle of Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Wrexham (North Wales); East Riding of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire (Yorkshire and the Humber)
Scope: New construction, refurbishment, specialist works and consultancy services
Procurement reference: R/RCF
Delivery Partners and Key Stakeholders
Regenda Limited: Merseyside-based housing association managing more than 13,000 properties across the North West; core business is Regenda Homes, with wider group activity spanning regeneration, care and support
Rise Construction Framework Ltd: Liverpool-based framework management specialist, acting as procurement agent on behalf of Regenda throughout the tender and award process
Morgan Sindall Construction: Tier-one contractor awarded places on both the general construction and refurbishment lots
Robertson Construction: National contractor with strong North West and North Wales presence; awarded places on both general construction and refurbishment lots
Seddon Construction: Lancashire-based regional contractor; awarded places on both lots
Henry Brothers: Northern Ireland-based contractor with a growing mainland UK presence; secured a general construction panel place
Krol Corlett Construction: Regional North West contractor; awarded places on both general construction and refurbishment lots
Stepnell: Midlands and North West contractor; secured a general construction place
Read Construction: Regional contractor; appointed to the general construction lot
Walter Carefoot & Sons: Lancashire-based regional contractor; general construction panel
Rosslee Construction: Regional North West firm; general construction panel
John Turner Construction Group: North West regional contractor; general construction panel
Manchester & Cheshire Construction Company: Regional firm; general construction panel
P Casey: Regional contractor; general construction panel
Plus 35 additional firms across the refurbishment lot and specialist works and consultancy service categories
Construction and Technical Details
The framework is structured across multiple lots and value bands, allowing Regenda and any other public sector organisations that access the framework to call off contracts at the appropriate tier for each project. The general construction lot is the largest and most competitive, with 38 firms appointed covering project values from small-scale repairs at the lower end through to schemes exceeding £15 million at the upper band.
Key structural details include:
General construction lot: 38 appointed firms spanning all value bands from minor works to projects above £15 million; bidders for this lot were restricted to tendering for a maximum of three value bands
Refurbishment lot: 35 appointed firms, including several contractors who also hold general construction lot places, reflecting the overlap in capability between new build and refurbishment delivery in the social housing sector
Specialist works lot: Separate category covering trade and specialist packages not covered within the general construction or refurbishment scopes
Consultancy services lot: Professional services covering design, project management, cost consultancy and related disciplines to support Regenda’s development and asset management programmes
Award methodology: Highest-ranking bidders within each lot and value band allocated framework places; any bidder scoring below 60% on combined cost and quality assessment excluded, regardless of ranking; reserve supply partner positions retained to cover framework vacancies
Call-off terms: Contract terms and forms of contract applied on a project-by-project basis, with public sector call-off clients using their own preferred terms when accessing the framework
The framework is accessible to other public sector organisations beyond Regenda, consistent with the collaborative procurement model that Rise Construction Framework operates across its portfolio.
Timeline
November 2025: Framework procurement published on Find a Tender and Sell2Wales procurement portals; tender process opens to the market
Early 2026: Evaluation of submissions completed; contractor appointments confirmed across all lots and value bands
25 March 2026: Framework goes live; contractors able to receive call-off contracts from Regenda and participating public sector organisations
24 March 2030: Framework expiry; four-year term with no extension provisions confirmed in the award notice
Strategic Importance
A £428 million housing framework covering three regions and four delivery categories is not a routine procurement exercise. It is a statement of investment intent from one of the North West’s most established housing associations, and it arrives at a moment when the social housing sector in England is under considerable pressure on both new supply and existing stock quality.
Regenda’s decision to partner with Rise Construction Framework rather than run the procurement in-house reflects a growing trend in the social housing sector towards collaborative, professionally managed frameworks. Rise’s Liverpool base and established contractor relationships across the North West give Regenda access to a pre-qualified, competitively selected panel without carrying the full administrative cost of running a large-scale procurement programme internally. The result is a framework that is simultaneously tailored to Regenda’s geography and open to wider public sector use, amplifying its commercial reach beyond a single client organisation.
The geographic scope of the framework is notable. Covering the North West of England, six counties of North Wales and the full Yorkshire and Humber region in a single instrument is ambitious. It signals that Regenda’s development and asset management ambitions extend well beyond Merseyside and into the broader northern England and Welsh housing market. For contractors, particularly regional firms with operations across multiple Northern England counties, holding a place on this framework provides a meaningful competitive advantage in accessing social housing work across a large and active territory.
The inclusion of both tier-one national contractors and smaller regional firms within the same framework lots is also strategically considered. Morgan Sindall and Robertson Construction bring programme management capability and financial scale for the larger above-£15 million schemes. Walter Carefoot & Sons, Rosslee and John Turner bring local knowledge, community relationships and cost efficiency for smaller packages. Regenda gets both ends of the capability spectrum within a single procurement instrument.
Writer’s Opinion
The Regenda framework tells a story that goes beyond one housing association’s procurement strategy. It reflects the structural reality of social housing delivery in northern England in 2026: demand is significant, funding is constrained, and the organisations responsible for delivery are becoming increasingly sophisticated about how they structure their contractor relationships.
The £428 million headline figure should be read with appropriate nuance. This is a framework value, an estimated ceiling across four years, not a committed expenditure programme. Individual projects will be called off against it on a competitive mini-tender or direct award basis, and the total spend will be determined by Regenda’s actual development and asset management activity across the framework period. The real question is not how much the framework is worth on paper, but how much of that capacity Regenda can genuinely deploy given the constraints on affordable housing funding, planning consent timescales and labour and materials costs in the current market.
The contractor list itself is revealing. The presence of both national contractors and local regional firms on the same panel, competing across the same value bands, reflects the competitive reality of northern England construction procurement. Morgan Sindall does not automatically win social housing work in Merseyside simply because of its size. It competes against Seddon and Krol Corlett, firms that have deep roots in precisely the communities where Regenda operates. That competitive tension is healthy, and Regenda’s framework structure is designed to preserve it.
What this framework ultimately represents is confidence, from a housing association that has been through the volatility of post-pandemic construction costs, supply chain disruption and housing funding uncertainty, and has concluded that a structured, long-term contractor panel is the right instrument for the period ahead. Whether that confidence proves well-founded will depend on factors well beyond Regenda’s control. But the procurement architecture is sound, and the contractor panel is genuinely strong.
