Brighton family firm launches dedicated compliance division to tackle growing demand

Woodhart Property Enhancements (WPE) has been established as a dedicated arm of the Woodhart Group, founded by brothers Matt and Ben Woodhart in Portslade in 2006. The company now employs over 200 people across four divisions – Carpentry, Construction, Developments and Property Enhancements – and the new compliance division marks a strategic shift for the business.

WPE takes a whole-building approach to damp, mould and building performance, working across structural integrity, fire safety and compliance, and energy performance, ventilation and damp control. It works with landlords, housing associations, local authorities and property managers across Brighton & Hove and the wider Sussex region.

 

Matt Woodhart, co-founder of the Woodhart Group, said: “We set up WPE because we kept seeing the same pattern – a landlord or housing association addresses one issue, only for another to surface six months later, because the root cause was never properly identified. Most building problems are connected. Damp is linked to poor ventilation, mould is caused by inadequate airflow or thermal bridging, but they’re routinely treated in isolation, which leads to repeated failures and higher costs in the long run.

“That is where we come in. We take a whole-building approach and specialise in compliance. It protects the landlord from legal cases and from their tenants getting health issues. It makes the building fit to rent and over time it adds value.”

WPE delivers compliance-led improvements through three core areas: structural and building integrity, including remedial works and fabric repairs; fire safety and compliance, covering fire stopping, compartmentation and passive fire protection; and energy, ventilation and damp control, encompassing insulation upgrades, ventilation strategies and damp and mould resolution.

Most projects begin with a single reported issue but expand into coordinated works across multiple areas once the full picture is understood.

Working primarily in Brighton and Hove, Matt notes the additional complexity of the city’s older housing stock, and said: “Many buildings are heritage buildings – they’re quite tricky to bring up to modern standards.”

Matt says the fragmented way the industry typically handles building issues - treating damp, fire safety, ventilation and structural problems as separate jobs - is what drives up costs and leaves underlying problems unresolved.

"WPE was created to deal with all these problems and look at the building as a whole rather than individual fixes," he said. "Most of the time, one issue is connected to another. If you only patch one thing, something else surfaces six months later."

To find out more, visit: https://woodhartgroup.co.uk/property-enhancements/