15,000-home Welsh landlord to be created if merger talks prove successful

News05.12.233.30 PM by Grainne Cuffe

Melin Homes and Newport City Homes have announced they are exploring a merger that would create a 15,000-home association.

Melin Homes owns more than 4,500 homes across South East Wales (picture: Google Street View)

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Melin Homes and Newport City Homes have announced they are exploring a merger that would create a 15,000-home association #UKhousing

The two Welsh housing associations said they were “delighted to announce that we are starting a programme of work to further explore how to merge” the organisations into a single entity.

Newport City Homes owns and manages around 10,000 homes, while Melin owns more than 4,500 homes across South East Wales.

In a statement, Newport City Homes said: “The new organisation will provide improved services for customers and residents and enable us to offer greater opportunities to colleagues.

“In response to the challenges in the sector, our new 15,000-home organisation will have greater financial capacity and resilience, an annual development programme of 500 sustainable homes, and the ability to respond better to the challenges being faced by our customers, residents and communities.

“Our work will begin immediately and we will involve the customers, residents and colleagues of both associations.”

It said “recognising the amount of work required”, the initial focus will be on agreeing timelines, appointing advisors and “determining the best approach to enable the merger to progress at pace”.

Newport City Homes added: “Throughout, we’d like to reassure our customers and residents that our services will continue as usual.

“An update on these timelines and the programme of work for 2024 will be provided by the end of the year.

“The final merger will only take place once a number of requirements have been met including the consent of funders and regulators and the agreement of both boards.”

There are a number of planned mergers in Wales at the moment as Inside Housing reported this week that Coastal Housing Group has entered merger talks with RHA Wales to created a 10,000-home landlord.

Prior to that, Newport-based Pobl announced in October that talks were underway over a potential merger with Cardiff-based Linc Cymru.