You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Alison is a former President of the Chartered Institute of Housing. She is a Board Member at Colne Housing Society. Alison is also on ...more
Delivering a merger during the pandemic: how we set about creating the largest community gateway association in the UK
Colne Housing’s merger with Greenfields Community Housing, which completed during the pandemic, will amplify tenants’ voices and influence, writes Alison Inman, with behind-the-scenes insight into the thinking behind the creation of the UK’s largest community gateway association
Our local paper has been full of the stories and photos of babies born during lockdown, but this week its centrefold was given to a different birth: a new housing association. Eastlight Community Homes owns 12,000 homes, has plans to build 3,800 more and is the largest community gateway association in the country.
The merger of Colne Housing and Greenfields Community Housing – the formation of Eastlight – took place on 1 July, but its gestation goes back almost five years.
Colne was established in 1973 and has a proud history. It had an important place in North Essex’s civil society and provided homes for around 3,000 households. It was financially secure and had stewardship of high-quality homes.
So why the merger?
READ MORE
Back in November 2015, Colne’s board held an away day, deep in the Essex countryside and in the midst of a terrific storm. It’s funny what you remember.
We were challenged by the facilitator, the inestimable Martin Wheatley, to look far into the future, to really think about the role Colne could play in meeting housing need in an area of fast population growth.
Although Colne works across the southern part of East Anglia, most of the stock is in North Essex, and Essex is maybe an outlier in the distribution of social housing. Of the 14 housing authorities, the vast majority remain in council control. In the wider region, there are a number of relatively small housing associations, with the major centres of Cambridge, Norwich and Ipswich retaining their council housing.
At Colne, we were clear that, although we were developing at a good rate through our joint venture, Iceni Homes, we had the potential do more. In addition, the responsibilities of social landlords to keep their residents, and the business itself, safe could be challenging for a relatively small organisation.
We were clear that at no point in the future did we want Colne to be in a position of being ‘rescued’, but that we would do whatever was needed to provide the homes we need in this part of the world.
After spending some time ensuring Colne was ‘doing the basics brilliantly’, we launched our pioneering proposition ‘Unlocking Eastern Potential’ in 2018. We approached several housing associations operating in the East, asking them to show how, by working together, we could help solve the challenges facing the region.
“By merging Colne and Greenfields, we could amplify tenants’ voices and influence”
The process took its time, but in July last year the board took the decision to work with our close neighbours at Greenfields – leading to the creation of Eastlight Community Homes.
One of the attractions of Greenfields was undoubtedly its status as a community gateway association. By merging Colne and Greenfields, we could amplify tenants’ voices and influence.
That began with our residents scrutinising the merger process and making the final decision on the name of the new organisation, and it felt important that the first meeting of the shadow board began with input from Tpas on delegated decision-making. Start as you mean to go on…
Eastlight is committed to being ‘bigger, better, bolder’ and we will hold ourselves accountable to our residents and the wider community in the coming years.
In the meantime, the staff from Colne and Greenfields have absolutely blown our socks off – delivering business as usual in the run up to a merger is hard enough, to do it during a global pandemic is nothing short of spectacular. So thanks to them and to everyone who has helped us on this journey. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Alison Inman, board member, Eastlight Community Homes, Saffron and Tpas; and former president, Chartered Institute of Housing
