A merger too far

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

It may not be quite merger mania but the steady flow of housing association amalgamations continues.

So too do the questions. Where will this end? When does big become too big? Should business logic always trump local connection? 

The mooted merger between Bromford Flagship and LiveWest made me think again about all those questions precisely because of that local factor.

When I first moved to west Cornwall in the 1990s, the council housing stock had just gone through a stock transfer, one of many carried out by small district councils following approval by tenants in a ballot.

In 2007 Penwith Housing Association became part of Devon and Cornwall Housing. DCH in turn merged with Knightstone to form LiveWest in 2018.

The tenants’ landlord became larger and larger and also more remote – with headquarters more than 100 miles away in Devon – and there was no further ballot but at least those organisations made some kind of regional sense. 

Now, 30 years on from that original stock transfer, we potentially have merger number three, with LiveWest in talks to become part of Bromford Flagship (itself the product of a merger that only happened in February).

The merged landlord will become one of the largest in the country, owning or managing more than 120,000 homes stretching from Land’s End to Norfolk via the Midlands, with a headquarters 230 miles away in Tewkesbury.