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At Barratt Developments, we build communities for everyone. Last week, our East London team launched their wheelchair-adaptable show home at Bermondsey Heights. Managing Director Stephen Thompson, Sales and Marketing Director Yolanda Jacob, Head of Design for London Regional Attzaz Rashid, and Sales Manager Entela Shanaj hosted a range of organisations to showcase the home's impressive features: · Height-adjustable kitchen countertops · Widened doorways and hallways · Lowered light switches and sockets · Wet room · Wheelchair storage · Side-opening ovens and under-counter appliances "It's fantastic to see this accessibility being designed into our products," says Luke Harman, Chair of Scaffold, our employee network for disabled colleagues. "This is a great leap forward for accessible living for wheelchair users."
"If I could sum up the 'Catalyst programme' in one work, I would say inspiring." After six years of running 'Catalyst', our female support programme, we know that when we lift our female colleagues up to stand 'shoulder-to-shoulder', they thrive. Over the past month, we have delivered the module, 'The Art of Seeing Yourself,' where delegates take two days to step out of their day-to-day roles and focus on being the best they can be. Interested in hearing more? Here is what one of the delegates shared about their experience: "Personally, I feel Catalyst has changed my mind-set and given me the tools to start seeing challenges as opportunities to grow. It challenged my thinking and encouraged me to utilise my skills to maximise my potential, both within the workplace and outside of it. While also providing the opportunity to expand my network further afield within the business."
𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐲, 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝 We all know exercise is good for the body. But did you know ‘regular movement’ (30 minutes a day) has been clinically proven to reduce anxiety, depression and stress while increasing sleep quality and happiness? (NHS England) That’s why we are joining the conversation for #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek (13 to 19 May) and focusing on this year’s theme: ‘Movement’ and its connection to mental health. At Barratt, we believe in fostering a healthy work environment that supports your mental, physical and financial wellbeing. We encourage our people to find moments to move, such as ‘walk and talk meetings’, cycling to work, regular breaks to move, stretch and re-charge, getting out into nature at lunchtime or building in regular exercise via discounted gym membership. Plus, the ‘Barratt Benefits’ we offer also support our people in making their movement sustainable: ✅ 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐲𝐦 𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬: 3,800 gyms across the UK (yoga, CrossFit, swimming, weight training, etc.) ✅ 𝐂𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞2𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬: Saving money on a new work bike. ✅ 𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬: Two days of paid leave to support charity. ✅ 𝐅𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Maintain a healthy work-life balance. ✅ 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 & 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭: Private medical cover and annual health assessments. ✅ 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: connecting with colleagues at an outdoor event.
Managing Safety, Health and the Environment is our number one priority. This is why we conduct so many safety, health and environmental site monitoring inspections, to make sure we have consistently high standards across all of our sites and keep our teams safe. Last year we carried out 5,178 site safety inspections, more than any other housebuilder. These inspections help health and safety remain front of mind for all our employees and contractors that work on our behalf.
We’ve launched the Big Barratt CleanUp. As part of our partnership with CleanupUK, all 32 of our Divisions are organising litter picks around the country this Spring to help improve their local areas. This is the first time Barratt has organised such a big mass environmental cleanup, with the first of the litter picks taking place this week alongside Regent’s Canal by the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It was really successful, with the Barratt East London and Executive team filling over 70 bin bags! CleanupUK is a charity that unites volunteers to bring about cleaner, connected and safer communities by tackling the litter problems where they live. Cleaning up and litter picking are activities which bring people closer together, and help create a greater sense of pride and community in their areas. We are proud to support our employees to volunteer through such initiatives as the Big Barratt Cleanup, and of our £100,000 partnership with CleanupUK, organised by the Barratt Foundation.
Let’s talk autism. Did you know? Over 1 in 100 people are on the autism spectrum in the UK (roughly 700,000 autistic adults and children). Despite the prominence of this neurodiversity, autism remains misunderstood and often overlooked. This April, we join the global conversation for ‘Autism Acceptance Month’. It is an important time to improving our understanding, acceptance and inclusivity of people with autism within our communities. At Barratt Developments, we firmly believe all of our unique perspectives, talent and experiences contribute to our position as a leader in UK housebuilding. Internally, our disability network, Scaffold, is actively promoting acceptance and fostering inclusivity through an internal webinar, ‘Let’s Talk Autism'. Open to all colleagues, the session aims to further our: ✅ Understanding of autism ✅ How to become better allies and actively promote acceptance ✅ Hear first-hand experiences from our colleagues Additionally, we recently featured Victoria Smith, a Power BI Developer in Group Support, who shared her experiences as an autistic woman. The article also included her manager, James Gardner, Group Head of Data and Analytics, who discussed the benefits of having an autistic colleague for his team and how they collaboratively created a safe and inclusive working environment. Join us in marking ‘Autism Acceptance Month’ by spreading understanding, advocating inclusivity and building a more accepting community for all.
A remarkable Roman villa complex has been unearthed during construction at our Brookside Meadows site in Grove, Oxfordshire. The site sits on a landscape inhabited since the Bronze Age and includes a villa complex richly decorated with painted plaster and mosaics. There is even a monumental hall-like ‘aisled building’. The artefact-rich site was long-lived, with Roman activity extending from the 1st or 2nd centuries into the late 4th or perhaps even the early 5th century AD. Campbell Gregg, Managing Director of Barratt and David Wilson Homes Southern, said: “It’s remarkable to think that we are simply the latest in a line of people who have established a community on this site, dating back such a long way. "It’s been fantastic to work with Red River Archaeology Group in the early stages of Brookside Meadows to develop the local historical understanding and heritage.” On all our developments we work with archaeologists in the early stages of building to allow experts to carry out excavations in sites of interest. Not only is this a key part of a site’s progress, it enables local communities to find out valuable historical information and intriguing finds from the past on their doorstep.
We have been rated as a 5 star home builder by our customers for the 15th year in a row. This means over 90% of our customers would recommend us to a friend – a record that we are really proud of. Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation, said: “For a company to achieve 5 star levels of satisfaction is a significant achievement and shows the commitment from everyone within Barratt to the customer.” We are committed to building high quality, energy efficient homes and making sure our customers are happy. We believe it is this focus on customer satisfaction and building homes and places that people love living in, which delivers such consistently high recommendation scores.
We’re pleased to announce that Jennifer Winyard MRICS MRTPI has become National Chair of Women in Property , the influencing and networking organisation for the property and construction industry. Jennifer, who is Senior Strategic Land Manager at Barratt Homes Leeds, has taken up the post for a year. Women in Property encourages girls and young women to consider a career in property and construction through school outreach projects and the National Student Awards. In tandem with the work that Women in Property is doing, Barratt is working to overcome the skills shortage in the sector by launching an outreach initiative to 1 million young people over the next two years. Jennifer said: “Encouraging girls to consider a career in property and construction has been a major focus for me, throughout my professional life. My lived experience of this industry highlights the fantastic scope it offers across all sectors. "There is still more to do to encourage more people, particularly girls and young women, to make it their future too. I want to help change mindsets and unlock the potential they offer.”
We welcomed Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party, and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, to our Rose Place and The Lilies developments in Shrewsbury this week. While on site, they spoke with local people who want to buy a home, discussed the challenges in the planning system to getting new homes built, met with some of our apprentices building a career in the construction industry and saw first-hand the construction of our high quality, energy efficient new homes. As well as new affordable housing and significant contributions towards improving the local road network, the development has strong sustainability credentials. We'll plant more than 600 new trees and over 6,000 hedgerows and shrubs, install nearly 200 bird and bat boxes and create 2,000 metres of hedgehog highways. We'll also create more than 22 acres of managed wildflower meadows, grassland and bee-friendly planting, as well as seven new ponds.
