Our strategic partners and neighbours, Creating Enterprise, announced that they have secured £37m in contracts.

This is amazing news- their aim of kicking off plans for regeneration projects across North Wales – as well as building up to 300 new homes in the region, will surely benefit from this news- as well as the fact that they have recently received a £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery in order to support working families in the Conwy area.

You might have seen Creating Enterprise’s vans around the North Wales area in the past three years of their operation, but who are they?

Creating Enterprise is a subsidiary of Cartrefi Conwy, and also the very first of its kind in the whole of Wales. They employ tenants as workers, offering job-based training as well as paid employment opportunities within the company, and, unlike other organisations, do not simply subcontract work out.

It is an approach that is very clearly working – you only have to look at their staff numbers in order to see that. For instance, of the 60 people that currently work at Creating Enterprise, 50 of these people are tenants of Cartrefi Conwy managed homes.

Being a social enterprise they welcome those furthest from the job market into its direct labour force, as well as providing opportunities, paid employment, and work experience, all from their ground breaking Employment Academy which has provided training for over 200 job-seeking tenants so far.

They are self-sustainable, and ultimately, the tenants benefit from it just as much as their homes do. As the work by Creating Enterprise looks after the ongoing maintenance of the homes, the tenants themselves benefit from employment and training opportunities afforded to them by the organisation.

Initially Creating Enterprise started providing planned maintenance services for the 3,800 properties managed by Cartrefi Conwy, but have grown into so much more – building up their client base outside of Cartrefi Conwy as demand has risen.

In addition, They have worked with other social housing providers, and we are proud to say that Creating Enterprise perform painting and decorating works for us on an ongoing basis.

Brenig Group director, Mark Parry, had this to say about the news: “We’re delighted to be strategic partners with Cartrefi Conwy and we do a great deal of collaborative work with Creating Enterprise. It’s a dynamic approach to partnering which we fully embrace and look forward to working with them further in the future.”