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Housing associations with 25,000 homes combined explore ‘partnership’
Accord and GreenSquare are exploring a potential “partnership”, the housing associations have jointly announced today.
Accord, which manages 13,000 affordable homes across the Midlands, and GreenSquare, which manages more than 12,000 homes in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, are engaging in talks over the coming months to see what such a partnership might achieve.
Inside Housing asked the partners if the plan would be to merge into one organisation but they said it was too early to say how it might look.
In March last year, it was revealed that GreenSquare had breached the Home Standard on fire safety after the organisation failed to implement a large number of high-priority actions arising from fire risk assessments.
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Following this, the regulator downgraded GreenSquare’s governance grading to ‘G2’, as an in-depth assessment found “a clear lack of leadership around health and safety issues”.
Accord is one of the largest housing and social care organisations in the Midlands. It provides health and social care to around 80,000 people. It is also the lead partner of the Matrix Partnership, a group of nine social landlords managing more than 100,000 homes across the Midlands between them.
It signed a strategic partnership agreement worth £77m with Homes England, the government’s housing delivery agency, to provide 2,257 homes.
Chris Handy, chief executive of Accord, said: “Accord’s board is always assessing opportunities that present themselves and early discussions with GreenSquare have shown that our organisations are very well aligned.”
Ruth Cooke, chief executive of GreenSquare, said: “A partnership between Accord and GreenSquare could provide an excellent opportunity for both organisations to expand and enhance our services to customers.
“Although conversations are at an early stage, I am looking forward to exploring what might result from us combining our strengths.”
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