Housing association boards approve merger to create 38,000-home landlord

When merger talks were announced, Julie Doyle, chief executive of Longhurst, said the landlord had a “strong existing relationship with Grand Union Housing Group, with whom we share similar visions and values, as well as geographic footprints and growth aspirations”.

Aileen Evans, chief executive of Grand Union, said: “Both ourselves and Longhurst Group are well governed and built on solid financial foundations, and we believe that we’d be even stronger together as a larger organisation and have more resilience to respond to a challenging operating environment.”

Longhurst has a G1/V2 grading for governance and financial viability from the Regulator of Social Housing, while Grand Union has a G1/V1 rating.

Grand Union recently told Inside Housing how it has overhauled its approach to resident engagement, including by introducing psychographic segmentation to help it understand residents’ needs better.

In March, Grand Union acquired just under 140 homes from Clarion. The homes were made up of those for social, intermediate and affordable rent, as well as shared ownership.

Longhurst’s latest trading update for the first quarter of 2024-25 reported a net surplus that was £3.3m higher compared with quarter one in 2023-24. It said this was due to the impact of inflation on income, rental income from new homes and strong first-tranche sales.