Supporting essential housing services

Southern Housing, one of the UK’s largest housing associations, has built a strong and evolving partnership with Northgate Vehicle Hire over several years who have supported it through a period of significant growth.

Northgate supports housing associations through the ‘Pretium Framework’ specifically for public sector clients, which provides full assurance that their procurement process meets regulatory requirements, while also delivering tangible benefits long-term cost predictability alongside pooled mileage and no excess mileage penalties.

We support Southern Housing from 4 branches across the South of England, supported by a dedicated Account Manager with weekly meetings and regular site visits, focused on ensuring service continuity, fast issue resolution, and a proactive approach to their fleet’s performance and planning. Our experience in supporting public sector clients is key to the support we can offer, with specialist knowledge on vehicle specifications, additional equipment needs, and broader strategic decisions within the social housing context.  We also work with their semi cap supplier, ensuring vehicles are fully fitted and ready for service with minimal delays and maximum alignment across all stakeholders.

Over the past two years, their fleet has a major transformation of its fleet, embarking on a large-scale vehicle replacement programme, removing aging vehicles from the road while simultaneously expanding their in-house capabilities, working with Northgate to manage their fleet needs, including assessing the potential for eLCVs joining the fleet. By understanding the customer’s long-term goals and aligning services to meet them, Northgate has helped Southern Housing improve fleet performance, reduce costs, and strengthen their ability to deliver frontline services to the communities they support.