Newham Council is set to invest £9 million to refurbish Hamara Ghar, a 10-storey sheltered housing block in Plaistow North. The decision was made during a Cabinet meeting held on Tuesday, 16 December 2025. The project aims to modernise the building and improve the living conditions for its elderly and vulnerable residents.
The contract for the Hamara Ghar Refurbishment Modernisation and Retrofit Project will be awarded to Mulalley & Co Ltd for £8.1 million. An additional £900,000 has been allocated to cover additional costs, bringing the total budget to £9 million. The funding will come from uncommitted capital allocations within the Retrofit Programme Budget.
Mulalley & Co Ltd was chosen through a direct award call off under the LHC Refurbishment and Modernisation (RM3) Framework because a sufficient level of quality and price scrutiny had already been undertaken through a previous tender exercise, making a repeat process duplicative. Mulalley and Company are ranked second on the RM3 framework, and the first-ranked supplier confirmed they did not wish to participate. The previous competition, which had identified Mulalley and Company as the preferred supplier, could not lawfully result in a contract award because the framework under which it was run had expired.
The refurbishment will include:
- Fabric repairs
- Kitchen and bathroom modernisation
- External wall insulation
- Window replacement
- Fire door replacement
- Electrical upgrades
The Cabinet report stated that the current in-house repair and maintenance team, RMS, does not have the capacity to undertake works of this nature. The report also noted that not awarding the contract would result in the failure to meet the council's obligations as landlord.
The Hamara Ghar Cabinet Report identifies that not awarding the contract would result in a failure to meet the council's obligations as landlord
. The report does not specify how these risks will be mitigated during the project.
Councillor Blossom Young, Cabinet Member for Council Housing Improvements, has been delegated the authority, in consultation with the Corporate Director of Inclusive Economy, to agree to variations within the overall budget of £9 million.
The agenda for the meeting also included discussions on the closure of Calverton Primary School, leisure inequalities, consumer standards compliance, housing service improvements, the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan update, and the Populo Living 2026/27 Business Plan.