What’s this about?
While negotiations continue on our future trading relationship with the European Union (EU), we’d like to reassure our customers, partners and suppliers about the steps we’re taking to make sure we can continue to deliver our services.
What’s the top line?
We’re confident that whatever the outcome of the government’s negotiations with the EU, we’ll be able to continue to invest in our homes and communities, create new homes and maintain our customer services.
That’s because we’re maintaining strong relationships with a wide range of suppliers and have received their assurances that we’ll continue to get the supplies we need. We have also put robust plans in place to deal with any situation that could affect our business.
We’re not complacent though and we will continue to monitor the situation very closely.
In more detail…How Brexit could impact Abri?
While Brexit has the potential to have an impact on our home-building activities and the maintenance and repairs of our existing homes, we don’t believe this will be significant.
Brexit could lead to:
- Increased costs due to the possible imposition of customs duties and tariffs on materials sourced from or through the European Union.
- Some disruption to the supply of materials leading to potential shortages. This could include:
- construction-based materials imported from the EU such as timber
- parts for lifts and heating systems
- company vehicles (and the parts necessary for their repair and maintenance).
- Longer lead times due to increased administration requirements at the border and potential difficulties in sourcing materials, parts or components
- Labour shortages, in particular, among contractors and sub-contractors
- Increased pressures on the communities we serve, especially those that currently experience high levels of deprivation and/or are struggling to recover from the impacts of the coronavirus. This could lead to increased social fragmentation, reduced opportunities or affect people’s general health and wellbeing.
You may have seen speculation in the press about the impact of Brexit on European funding. This won’t affect Abri because we don’t rely on European funding to support any of our business activities.
What is Abri doing about this?
Quite a lot in fact! So much so, we’re confident we’ll be able to continue to operate as normal. That’s because:
- We’re maintaining strong relationships with all our suppliers, and we’re confident that our services will not be affected.
- We have put in place contracts with a wide range of suppliers to ensure that we can continue to get the materials we need should an individual supplier experience any difficulties
- We have asked all our suppliers to provide reassurance and contingency plans to confirm that they will be able to continue to provide the supplies we need after 1 January 2021.
- Our suppliers have assured us that they are increasing production and holding higher levels of stock, especially in their UK-based warehouse and distribution centres
- We’re holding a three-month contingency stock of personal protective equipment ourselves and arranging alternative supplies so that we can continue to deliver our services safely
- We’re putting in place back-up options including strengthening our supply networks
- We’re focusing our resources on eight community investment areas and working with our partners to provide empowerment, health and employment interventions to promote community resilience and improve life-chances.
It’s worth noting that the UK government is adopting a light touch regime for the import of non-controlled goods for the first half of 2021 which will also minimise the impact on the types of materials we need.
We’re also:
- closely monitoring our development contractors and fixing our costs wherever possible
- having early discussions with any staff who might be affected by Brexit so that they are aware of the process they need to follow, if appropriate, to make an application to the UK’s EU Settled Status scheme before June 2021. This will help ensure we have the people we need to meet our commitments.
- reviewed and updated our business continuity plans so that we can deal with any likely situation that Brexit might create.
Finally, we continue to maintain a strong financial position and adequate cash reserves so that we are able to withstand any short or long-term impacts from Brexit or indeed any other economic risks to our business.
For further information
If you’d like further information about our Brexit plans, please contact caroline.moore@abri.co.uk
