Housing group merger to generate £25 million funding boost

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Local Government

Housing provider Aster Group - which manages over 17,000 homes - has merged three of its housing associations to form a single company.

Called Aster Communities, the new business brings together Flourish Homes in Somerset, Sarsen Housing Association, which works in Cornwall, Devon and Wiltshire, and Testway Housing, based in Hampshire.

The merger - which has taken place following consultation - is expected to generate additional funding capacity of £25 million which can be invested in developing services for customers, building new homes and improving existing properties.

Aster says its customers will play a key role in the running of the new group.

It says customer boards have been formed for each region to review how Aster Communities’ housing services are doing, suggesting areas for change, identifying opportunities, highlighting where housing can improve and making decisions about the direction the business should take in the future.

Steve Benson, group services director for Aster Group, said: “By bringing the operations of all three of our housing associations together, we believe we can offer better services and value for money.

“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, so we feel it’s essential they play an active role in how Aster Communities operates. They’ve always given us excellent feedback on how we can improve what we do and having the new customer boards in place will allow them to have even greater input in the future.”

Earlier this month, Aster announced it was in talks with Synergy Housing to merge organisations which it said would deliver improved quality and value for their combined 70,000 customers.

The new group would create a 26,000-home social landlord operating across central southern and south west England.