Locarla is a data intelligence platform for the UK social housing sector. We help contractors and suppliers identify opportunities, analyse markets, and track housing performance.

Our clients include housing contractors, suppliers, consultants, and developers who want fast, accurate insight into housing associations and local authority repairs data.

Locarla | The UK's Social Housing Data Platform

Social Housing RMI Business Intelligence

Hello World!

It’s been a whole month, and I’ve genuinely missed you all.

Unfortunately I won’t be making it to Manchester this year, but don’t be too disappointed, I’m sending Amy and Charlie instead. If you spot them handing out ‘Locolos’, please wrestle them to the ground and say hello.

This past month has been spent fixing the broken bits of our new contracts section. As clients, you quite rightly expect things to work. What isn’t always obvious is that the link you clicked, on the page you clicked it from, after a sequence of four other clicks that led you there, is incredibly difficult for us to find without feedback.

Sometimes a bug that takes two seconds to discover can take four days for a senior programmer to fix.

And no, AI isn’t riding to the rescue. It will often tell you what’s wrong in much the same way a drunk gives directions to somewhere they’ve never been. If we tried to find every issue before releasing an update, we’d probably still be working on it next Christmas. Instead, we release, listen, fix, improve and repeat. Thankfully, the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

We’ve also built a completely new front-end for Locarla, which goes live this weekend. Like many businesses, we’ve used AI-generated content and imagery to help us create something that looks far more polished than a group of programmers would normally manage on their own. The tools are helpful, but they’re not magic. The site has still taken around two months to build. AI helps but people still do the work.

Looking ahead, we have two major developments underway, both focused on helping clients better understand opportunities, requirements and market intelligence.

One thing worth mentioning: when people talk about AI today, they usually mean ChatGPT, Claude or one of the other large language models. These tools are impressive, but they’re only as useful as the knowledge they’re given.

Those models learned by consuming the public web. Our challenge is different. We are teaching our systems using years of social housing procurement, contract, asset and retrofit data. The goal isn’t to build another chatbot. The goal is to turn specialist sector knowledge into something genuinely useful for you.

In this month’s Briefing you’ll find the usual shenanigans, the latest EPC update report, and our first look at UK17 notices under PA23, including an analysis of who pays their suppliers promptly – and who doesn’t.

Until next month.

May the road rise up to meet you all.

‘Blue links‘ for all and ‘green links‘ are behind login so dependent on your licence.

Welcome, welcome, one and all.

Who Pays Contractors on Time?

Cashflow matters. Using 257 UK17 payment compliance notices published under the Procurement Act 2023, we analysed how quickly social housing landlords pay their suppliers. The results reveal a clear divide between councils and housing associations, identify the fastest and slowest payers in the sector, and highlight where late payment risk is most likely to impact contractors before they bid.

View Full Analysis

It’s all News to me!

POLICY & REGULATION

RSH confirms new electrical safety checks TSM for social landlords
The Regulator of Social Housing will require landlords in England to publish electrical safety checks data from 2026/27 as part of updated Tenant Satisfaction Measures.
Source →

FUNDING & INVESTMENT

Sage Homes raises £399m, taking total annual funding to over £945m
Sage Homes has completed its fifth CMBS deal, raising £399m to support continued investment in energy-efficient affordable housing delivery across England.
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THFC provides £250m funding support to Sovereign Network Group
The Housing Finance Corporation has agreed a £250m partnership with SNG to support investment in affordable new homes, existing stock and community regeneration across the South of England.
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Thriving Communities Consortium secures £5.5m funding boost for home decarbonisation
Additional £5.5m funding will upgrade 650 more homes, improving energy efficiency, reducing bills and supporting communities.
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PROCUREMENT & PIPELINE

Westminster launches £746m housing works framework
Westminster City Council is procuring long-term contracts for repairs, voids and major works across 21,000 homes, including retrofit and capital improvement programmes.
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South East Consortium launches Facilities Management Dynamic Market
South East Consortium has launched a Dynamic Market providing public sector organisations with access to facilities management, maintenance, security, cleaning and catering services.
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DELIVERY & RETROFIT

Mears secures £240m housing services contract with Thurrock Council
Mears expands services for Thurrock Council under £240m deal covering repairs, compliance and planned investment works.
Source →

0800 Repair awarded three major housing contracts
0800 Repair has secured contracts with Northumberland County Council, Home Group and Gateshead Council to deliver retrofit, heating upgrades and boiler installation works across the North East.
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Equans wins contracts to upgrade nine Birmingham tower blocks
Equans has secured deals with Birmingham City Council to deliver structural, safety and energy-efficiency upgrades across nine high-rise blocks to improve homes and extend building lifespans.
Source →

Oak Tree appoints Sureserve Energy UK for £5.5m kitchen and heating programme
Oak Tree Housing Association has awarded Sureserve Energy UK a contract to upgrade kitchens and heating systems across 445 homes in Inverclyde through a three-year investment programme.
Source →

Albyn awards compliance contracts to Cardo (Scotland) Limited
Albyn Housing Society has appointed Cardo Scotland to deliver heating, fire safety and electrical compliance services to support statutory safety duties across its housing stock.
Source →

England & Wales Social Housing EPC Update – Q2 2026

Every quarter, the national EPC register is refreshed with newly issued certificates, updates, and expired records. Following the latest release, Locarla has updated its social housing EPC dataset, providing an up-to-date view of energy performance across housing associations and local authorities in England and Wales.

This report summarises the current position of the sector, including active and expired EPCs, EPC rating distribution, regional performance, and the number of homes approaching certificate expiry. The figures relate exclusively to social housing properties in England and Wales and are based on Locarla’s matched and validated EPC database following the latest national register update.

Show me the money!

A PDF guide to contract management on Locarla.

PROCUREMENT PIPELINE OVERVIEW

This month’s procurement pipeline is gathering pace – with major opportunities opening across regeneration, repairs, planned works, retrofit, building safety and compliance in the UK social housing sector.

TOP OPPORTUNITIES

Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) – Private Sector Partner Procurement
Major regeneration partnership to deliver around 8,000 homes, commercial space and a new urban district at Old Oak.

Greater London

£10bn

34 Days

→ View notice

CDS Co-operatives – Open Framework – Repairs & Maintenance and Planned Works Services
Open framework covering responsive repairs, voids, M&E, compliance, planned works and retrofit programmes.

East Anglia, Greater London, South East

£2.5bn

9 Days

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