Association to target London and Herts after rationalisation
Origin transfers 12 per cent of stock
Origin Housing Group is to shed 632 homes and narrow its focus to just North London and Hertfordshire.
The 5,000-home housing association is transferring 632 general needs, sheltered and leasehold homes to other housing associations in a bid to improve service levels.
Origin is transferring 342 homes to three housing associations in deals worth £7.4 million. The association says the move will allow it to build stronger local partnerships and work more effectively with local authorities.
It is also looking to transfer a further 290 homes in Tunbridge Wells, Cambridge and Chelmsford. When its stock was at its highest level in 2008, Origin managed homes in 26 local authorities.
However, once the transfers are completed, the association will have withdrawn from nine local authority areas in south and west London, Kent, Cambridgshire and Essex.
Stock transfers of this size have traditionally been used to help fund decent homes work or to generate cash for struggling housing associations.
In October last year Servite Houses set the bar for the largest stock rationalisation of its kind, selling off nearly 1,800 homes - more than 10 per cent of its stock - in a deal worth £60 million.
The sell-off came after it fell £5.2 million into the red in 2007, and the Housing Corporation encouraged a cost-cutting plan.
Cathy McCarthy, director of care and support at Origin and the director leading the transfer project, said she expected stock rationalisation of this nature to become more common as associations focused more on their ‘core regions’.
‘Obviously we’ve been getting cash receipts for the sale but this was never a financially motivated decision,’ she said. ‘For the future we feel it is the way to go in terms of service improvements and fits in with the Tenant Services Authority’s new standards.’
The regulator has raised concerns over the standard of service received by tenants on estates where homes are owned by several associations.
A spokesperson for the Tenant Services Authority, said it supported stock rationalisation to provide better services for customers ‘which, in some cases, can be better delivered by a provider with higher levels of stock in an area’.
Origin’s transfers
170 homes
to Central Cecil Housing Trust in south and west London
129 homes
to Catalyst Communities Housing Association in Hounslow and Ealing
43 homes
to Mount Green Housing Association in Surrey
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