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Housing associations complete 57,000-home merger
Housing associations Thames Valley and Metropolitan have completed their merger, they have announced.
Under its new name, Metropolitan Thames Valley, the merged organisation will manage around 57,000 homes across London, the South East, the East Midlands and the East of England.
The associations announced talks in January, not long after Geeta Nanda, who will lead the new organisation, moved from Thames Valley to Metropolitan.
Ms Nanda led Thames Valley into merger talks with Genesis previously, but these fell through at the last minute.
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This merger, on the other hand, has now gone through, with Metropolitan Thames Valley ready to focus on its previously announced target of increasing its overall development to 2,000 homes a year.
This would be an increase of 66% from the combined total of the two housing associations in 2017/18, which was 1,202 according to Inside Housing’s Biggest Builders survey.
Ms Nanda, chief executive of Metropolitan Thames Valley, said: “Housing is at the centre of many of society’s challenges and this partnership is the start of an exciting journey. We will be firmly focused on improving things for our customers and communities – current and future.
“We’ll have a great local offer for people, and build the right partnerships to achieve our goals. We’ll also deliver towards 2,000 homes a year, approximately 80% of which will be affordable.”
Paula Kahn, chair of the organisation, added: “Organisations like ours are judged by the extent to which they truly listen to their customers and communities.
“We need to work together to ensure everyone has the opportunity to live well, with services they value and can trust. Metropolitan Thames Valley has the experience and will to do things differently in order to make this a reality. That will be our focus in the coming months.”
The new organisation is currently negotiating a series of joint ventures with NHS trusts, under which the trusts would own homes and thus receive long-term income from them.
