AN ENGINEERING and services firm has joined the Premier League after being picked to provide maintenance services for the Saints.

Southampton Football Club signed NG Bailey on a three-year contract.

The contract sees the business provide mechanical, electrical and building fabric maintenance at St Mary’s Stadium and the club’s Staplewood training ground at Marchwood.

The contract award is part of the club’s sustainability strategy, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of its sites, and follows a year-long evaluation and tendering process.

Tim Greenwell, Southampton FC’s chief legal and risk officer, said: “We are excited to welcome NG Bailey to work with us and we are really looking forward to building a long-term partnership with them.

“Their expertise will allow us to further maintain and improve our sites so that our players, staff and, most importantly, our fans will, in time, start to notice a really positive change. We believe that this relationship will really help us to build the facilities to carry the club forward, assist us in bringing our new sustainability strategy to life and help enhance the experience of everyone visiting St Mary’s for matches and other events.”

John Cooper, operations director at NG Bailey – which is headquartered in Yorkshire with offices up and down the country – said: “Maintaining excellence across everything we do is a key principle of our work at NG Bailey and we have a proven track record of delivering complex maintenance projects. We are incredibly proud to be entrusted with taking care of, and enhancing, these facilities.

“Our team will also be focusing on introducing new working practices and increasing the application of technology to improve the efficiency of the sites through reduction in energy, water and other resources.”

The Staplewood training facility, on the edge of the New Forest, includes training areas for the first team and youth team, as well as a gym, restaurant, function and seminar areas alongside temperature-controlled rehabilitation and treatment facilities, medical areas and a hydrotherapy pool.

NG Bailey says its flexible approach to building maintenance means problems can be identified sooner and fixed faster. Information from building management is also captured and used to improve a building’s carbon footprint by reducing energy and water usage.