Councillors quiz Walsall housing association bosses over huge merger

WHG said it will not ‘take its eye off the ball’ in a potential merger with a North Staffordshire housing association.

The comments were heard at a Walsall Council prosperous places and investment scrutiny committee meeting on April 9.

The housing association was called before members of the committee following news of the planned merger.

In February 2026, WHG said it was in ‘early talks’ with Aspire Housing, a housing association based in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

WHG said the reasons behind the move was to build a stronger organisation and keep up with government expectations.

It said rent and service charges for tenants will not increase as a result of the merger.

Councillor Simran Cheema, Labour ward member for Willenhall South, said: “We’ve seen mergers with other housing associations like Accord, and we’ve seen how badly it’s gone for them.

“It impacted customer services and there were really negative reports. What assurances can you give to your tenants that this merger won’t go down the same road as Accord did?”

Leader of the Labour group, Councillor Matt Ward, said: “It seemed like the merger was trying to be done behind closed doors, and not upfront with people. That’s how it felt.

“I don’t want to see a situation in three years’ time where this merger goes ahead and tenants suffer as a result.

“You’ll move on to something else, but they’ll be the ones left over with this legacy. I don’t want to see this happen if it’s going to cause long term problems.

“With any merger there will be job losses, there’s no doubt about that, you’ll be streamlining services. There are jobs in Walsall that could be lost at a time when we need as many jobs as possible.

“Also, if you’re doing so well, why risk it?”

It was noted at the meeting that both WHG and Aspire Housing have the ‘highest possible regulatory rating’.

Dawn Hendon, corporate director of governance, compliance and communications, said: “We are aware of other mergers in the sector, some really successful, some less so.

“It’s really important we do as much research as possible and talk to those organisations so we can learn what they did well and look at things we need to avoid doing.”

Gary Fulford, chief group executive, added: “You said it felt like it was behind closed doors. There is a commercial sensitivity around something like this.

“Because we have publicly listed bonds, there is a point that we have to declare we’re in a merger conversation. When the two boards agree there’s a business case and worth investigating further, we have to tell the stock market. At the same time we told the council.

“Whilst I appreciate you might not have heard it directly, we have to announce it first to the stock market then quickly tell as many people as we can. There was a prescribed order we had to do it in.

“In terms of job losses, we now employ 850 people who are great colleagues. I certainly don’t think there will be the need to make loads of people redundant in the merger.

“If you’re a plumber, the number of plumbing jobs that we have in both organisations is not going to change. We need to have all those people exactly the same. That applies across the whole organisation.

“We will take advantage of vacancies as they occur. But it’s not a case of showing people the door on day one, that’s not our intention at all.

“Why risk it? It’s something our board has talked about on more than one occasion. Because we could go into a merger with an organisation that could be a lot weaker than we are. That could drag our organisation down.

“We can’t get away from the fact it is getting more operationally difficult for us, with cost pressures. What the merger will do will build resilience in the business as we will be a bigger organisation and we think that will safeguard our future as well.

“Collectively, the two organisations will be able to do more. We understand what the pitfalls could be and we’ve taken action to mitigate those pitfalls.”