Our approach to social value ensures that in addition to delivering a brilliant building for our customers, we also leave a lasting legacy in their communities by improving the wellbeing of the people who live there.
Willmott Dixon’s own people, customers, and supply chain partners as well as the organisations and groups in the wider community all form part of our social value considerations. We listen carefully to understand their needs and plan where we can have the most impact on their wellbeing.
Delivering for our communities
We have a strong commitment to give back to the community and build lasting relationships with local groups, organisations and charities to make a difference in the communities we serve. In 2023, 100% of Willmott Dixon projects had social value plans that were co-created with the customer. This makes sure our work is focused on community need and positively impacts people living around our project sites.
Often our customers require support for people with careers and employability training. We use our defined suite of programmes to create a bespoke plan of activities, in collaboration with the customer, to meet local needs.
Details of the work we do to support people into good careers can be found in the 'Supporting people into careers' section of this report.
Sometimes there are specific challenges in an area that we want to help with. Below are some examples:
Connecting people with nature
We endeavour to combine our social value activities with our ambitions to support and enhance the natural environment.
Willmott Dixon people helped transform the Forget Me Not Garden in Deane, Bolton (below), as part of social value work delivered alongside Bolton Dementia Support and Bolton Community and Voluntary Services (CVS). The garden supports those in the Bolton area that have been diagnosed with dementia and their carers.
In Rochdale, we teamed up with local charities Petrus and Touch Wood to create a workshop for local people at a community allotment in the town, which is used as recreational space by local schools, hospitals and health care centres. The workshop provides a new base for Petrus Incredible Edibles, Rochdale (below), an initiative supporting people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, through the power of food.
Roy Down, engagement and development worker at Petrus added: “The fantastic support we have received from Willmott Dixon, has enabled a vision to become a reality. The workshop will not only offer us shelter from the elements but give us a much-needed space for crafts and woodworking. This will allow us to offer a new range of activities on the allotment. It is a game-changer for us, a facility that we could not have achieved without their support.”
In Stockport, we supported the council’s' ambition to make their allotment areas accessible to all by installing a new disabled toilet and workspace at Webb Lane Community Allotments. The allotments are used by a mix of people from local residents to school groups and local organisations. We celebrated the opening with local MP Navendu Mishra, councillors and local allotment users (below).
Mike Rodgers, chair of Webb Lane Community Allotments said: “Disabled visitors can now use the allotments as we have a wheelchair accessible toilet, it’s going to make a huge difference to the local community.”
We supported cycling in East London by creating a cycle hub close to Willmott Dixon’s Gascoigne regeneration project. Completed and handed over in 2023, management trainee, Dan Tredget (below), transformed a shipping container into a bicycle workshop to supporting cycling in communities. Supported by customers Barking and Dagenham Council and BeFirst, the cycle hub also offers training and maintains bikes for the Ride for Freedom charity, which donates bikes to survivors of modern slavery. The hub continues to be supported and in operation even though Willmott Dixon are no longer on site.
Prioritising mental health
To support the community around our Wixams development in Bedford, where we are helping to create 1,200 new school places, we worked with the Grange Academy to create a chill-out cabin for students with a diverse range of special educational needs.
‘Shedspace for your Headspace’ was designed by students at the school (below), who created a textured sensory wall, offering a safe environment where students can find relaxation and sensory stimulation. Willmott Dixon people contributed 117 volunteer hours and more than £3,000-worth of gifts in kind.
As part of our ongoing work with Caerphilly County Borough Council, we donated 10 laptops to Community Volunteers Wales initiative to address loneliness and social isolation (below). This is part of our wider “Building Lives Through Tech” programme that helps tackle digital poverty in the communities we serve by gifting recycled laptops via schools, social enterprises, community interest companies, charities and other organisations. In 2023, the project donated 75 laptops to individuals facing digital exclusion, with 422 pieces of IT equipment donated in total since the scheme began in 2020.
In September 2023, more than 100 people from Willmott Dixon Interiors’ London and Birmingham offices walked, ran, or cycled their way along the Grand Union Canal to meet in the middle in Milton Keynes (below). In support of mental health charity, Mind, the 140-mile trek raised more than £10,000.
Supporting charities and voluntary activities
In 2023, our people raised almost £35,000 for good causes. We delivered 313 social value programmes and our people donated almost 13,000 hours of their time. Overall, we know we have supported more than 5,000 people.
Food poverty continued to be an issue in 2023, with the Food Foundation finding 17.5% of people surveyed were experiencing food insecurity. In response, our people stepped up to help The Need Project and Letchworth’s Best Before Cafe, nearby to Willmott Dixon’s headquarters. They volunteered over 200 hours to fundraise for the charities, coordinating and delivering food bank collections and volunteering in the Best Before Cafe.
During 2023, we also fundraised for Hertfordshire homeless charity, ‘Feed Up, Warm Up’, donating over £6,000 to support its work providing safe spaces for the county’s most vulnerable people with fundraising activities including a family fun day, gruelling hiking challenge, and a company-wide fantasy football league.
In the North, 16 Willmott Dixon people took part in the Big Sleep Out in Stockport and Preston. Supporting people experiencing homelessness, the volunteers raised £4,231 for charities The Wellspring and the Foxton Centre. Pictured below are our seven brave volunteers who joined The Foxton Centre in Preston for their event at Preston North End’s football stadium in November 2023.