FTSE250-listed property company Assura moved its headquarters from Warrington to Altrincham last year.
Twelve months on, we speak to CEO Jonathan Murphy about how the move has gone - and why being an active part of the local community is so important.
ALTRINCHAM TODAY: Can you tell us a bit more about Assura and what the company does?
JONATHAN MURPHY: We invest in, develop and manage healthcare buildings. From your local GP surgery, such as the Park Surgery at Timperley, to multi-million pound private hospitals, primary care centres, diagnostic and treatment centres, mental health facilities and more. As the leading specialist healthcare property investor and developer, we’re enabling better health outcomes through these buildings, serving over six million patients across the UK and Ireland.
In 2020, Assura launched the Assura Community Fund, which has now distributed more than £2 million to health-improving projects in the communities around our buildings and impacted over 200,000 people.
AT: You’ll soon be celebrating your first year in Altrincham - can you tell us why the company decided to move to the town, and how the move to Barrington Road has gone?
JM: We can’t believe it’s been a full year since we moved. Altrincham was a really attractive location to us with its unparalleled public transport links into Manchester and beyond and a fantastic business community in the town.
As an organisation, we have pledged to meet the World Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment and our move to 3 Barrington Road represents a key part of that strategy. In January our plans got approved to enhance 3 Barrington, which will see us trialling the latest technologies and new ways of working, creating a space we are proud to bring our customers to: somewhere where we can bring to life all the net zero standards we’re pushing to see across health care premises.
We’re delighted by the move and since relocating here we’ve become a voluntary member of Altrincham BID, often taking part in their netwalking events. We’ve held our Christmas party and Board dinner locally and the team have definitely been taking advantage of the local eateries with It’s a Wrap being a particular favourite.
AT: How many staff do you have based in Altrincham now and how important is it for you to be active in the community?
JM: We have over 70 employees based in Altrincham, with future plans to expand. To us, Altrincham is the perfect place in which to do that with the local amenities available and our proximity to the interchange.
Being part of the community is extremely important to us, as a business ‘Healthy Communities’ are a key part of our strategy and that’s the communities surrounding all our properties as well as our HQ on Barrington Road. Regarding getting active in the community, we’ve already done some team volunteering at our neighbouring Church, we’ve swapped our office suppliers to local firms, some of the team will be taking part in the Alty10k and our plans to redevelop include a pocket park at the front of the building which will be accessible to all. Altrincham has such a great atmosphere and we’re just glad to be a part of it.
AT: The company has recently made its biggest ever acquisition - can you tell us a little bit more about that?
JM: We acquired 14 UK private hospitals from Northwest Healthcare Properties REIT. And you’re right, the £500 million acquisition is the biggest in our history and accelerates the delivery of our broader healthcare strategy, diversifying our offering in line with UK healthcare demands.
AT: Assura recently became the first FTSE250 business to be recognised with B Corp status. Can you tell us a bit more about what this involved and why it was important for the company?
JM: We have long been at the forefront of our sector in sustainability and social impact, and receiving the certification as the first FTSE 250 listed B Corp has validated the work we have been doing to focus on the impact we have for all our stakeholders.
The B Corp principles are intrinsic to our approach, and we know how important it is to our investors and customers that we are conscious of our impact on the environment and the communities we work in.
Regarding our journey and what’s involved, ours started with a conversation with a partner organisation, they’d been a B Corp since inception and were so enthusiastic about the benefits and how aligned we were already that I took it back to the team for discussion.
Roll forward 18 months and we've completed our assessment, refined our data collection and we are thinking about how we will continue to improve our business in line with B Corp principles.
AT: Sustainability is vital at Assura, as the B Corp certification shows. What does it actually mean in practice?
JM: For us it's about creating net zero carbon health care buildings and providing sustainable alternatives, both of which help the environment, support our 2040 net zero carbon ambition and positively impact building running costs for occupiers.
In practice, that might be looking at all electric solutions for heating/cooling of buildings, instead of a gas-fired boiler; using solar panels to create on-site electricity and replacing outdated lighting with lower consumption LED light fittings across our portfolio. We've recently completed a net zero carbon (in operation) ambulance hub in Bury St Edmunds and are on site with a net zero carbon child development centre and a GP surgery.
What's exciting about our HQ in Altrincham is that we've got the opportunity to trial and test technologies that can then influence the design and construction of our healthcare buildings, such as AI driven controls to link lighting/heating to occupancy and external weather conditions to drive down energy consumption.
