LiveWest and Bromford Flagship are in talks about joining to form a new housing association group. Both organisations deliver great customer service and consistently achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. By combining our strengths, we believe we can unlock even greater opportunities, enhancing the quality of services we provide whilst delivering more affordable homes for our local communities.
For more information, please see our frequently asked questions on this page and details of the consultation our customers are invited to take part in.
We want your views
Customers are at the heart of everything we do, and we want to hear what you think about our proposals.
We are asking our customers to take part in a consultation from Monday 13 October. Customers will receive an email or letter asking them to take part, with the consultation finishing on Monday 24 November.
You can also call us on 01392 814500 to give your feedback over the phone, or email us with any questions at consultation@livewest.co.uk.
Frequently asked questions
Our proposed merger is about delivering even better services for our customers and meeting the growing demand for affordable housing. It would allow us to build more homes, invest in our existing ones, and strengthen the frontline services that matter most to our communities. The merger would help us build over 50,000 new homes over the next 15 years and also unlock capacity for further significant investment in improving and maintaining our existing homes.
The merged group would have homes and provide services in the South West, Midlands, and East Anglia. About half of the homes are in the South West.
No, the merger would not affect your relationship with us as a customer. You would remain in your existing home, and your landlord would still be LiveWest Homes – LiveWest Homes would just be part of a new wider group structure. You would continue to be protected by the standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing and have the right to raise complaints to the Housing Ombudsman in exactly the way you do now.
Yes, both LiveWest and Bromford Flagship are committed to providing great customer services through locally based teams. Under the LiveWest brand, your services would continue to be delivered by local teams, ensuring you feel supported, and community needs understood.
Our LiveWest in-house maintenance service would continue to work in the same way it does now, 24 hours a day, seven days a week delivering great repairs services to your homes and expanding where we identify more need.
You would still see the same housing, repairs and estate services teams coming to your home and working in your neighbourhoods.
We would work with customers and partners to create a “Place Standard”. This means we would have a clear way to understand what a neighbourhood or community is like, including what it looks like, how it feels to live there, what things people can do, and how it affects the environment. We would use this guide to find out what matters most to people living there, so we can spend money and offer services in ways that really make a difference. By following this plan, we want to make sure all our homes and communities are right for the people who live there.
Yes, by joining together, we would be able to build a lot more new homes —over 50,000 in the next 15 years—and we would also have more money to invest in our existing homes and communities to keep them in good condition. The additional financial capacity would enable us to move faster towards EPC C and Net Zero to help customers save on energy bills.
No. Your rent or service charges would continue to be set as normal and in line with the Regulator of Social Housing’s Rent Standard, which is linked to inflation. We will write to you as we normally do during February and March each year.
No, your existing Housing Benefit and Universal Credit claims would remain unchanged. As before you still need to make a new claim if your circumstances change, for example if you move home, your income changes or someone moves into or out of your household. Help and advice will continue to be given to customers or leaseholders about benefit entitlement, and we will support for you if you are experiencing financial difficulties.
No, all statutory rights and duties would stay the same, as would the terms of your current tenancy agreement. If you are a shared ownership or leasehold customer, the terms of your lease and your rights would remain unchanged.
No, it would be business as usual. Services from LiveWest and our contractors would continue in the same way as they do now. Over time, we would plan to combine the strengths of both organisations and would look to make improvements to services based on customer feedback.
Both LiveWest and Bromford Flagship have a strong track record of customer involvement and recognise that this involvement is key to helping us develop and improve services. Customers would still be able to be involved in the same ways that they are now - for example, at LiveWest our customer scrutiny group, InFocus, would continue.
Yes, our planned programme of works for investing in our existing homes would continue. The benefits of merging would allow us to move faster with our investment in existing homes and move towards EPC C and net zero to help customers save on energy bills.
Yes, if you currently have the Right to Buy or Right to Acquire your home, you would continue to have that right.
No, all statutory rights and duties would stay the same. If you are a shared ownership or leasehold customer, the terms of your lease and your rights would remain unchanged.
No, your purchase would continue as normal, you can get in touch with us using all the LiveWest numbers you currently have. It’s business as usual.
Yes. If the merger goes ahead there is no change to your ability to purchase additional shares and our team will be able to give you more information so please get in touch.
At this stage we do not believe that there are any disadvantages. If the merger goes ahead, we would work together with colleagues from Bromford Flagship to create the new group and integrate our organisations. While some staff time and costs are involved in delivering this, these would be outweighed by the significant financial benefits. There would not be any impact on your security of tenure, rent, service charge levels or service delivery.
You may have concerns about us becoming a bigger landlord and we promise that if we decide to go ahead with the merger, this would not affect our commitment to great services and that through the LiveWest brand these would be delivered locally in your communities.
Yes. We will start asking customers what they think from the middle of October. Our Board will consider the feedback we receive before deciding whether to continue with the merger plans. It’s important that you take the opportunity to respond so that we can make sure your views are considered. We will share the outcome of the consultation with you and also explain how your ideas helped us make our final decision about the merger.
We are still in discussions about this, but if we decide to proceed then we expect the merger to happen between January-March 2026.
We will provide updates and FAQs about LiveWest, Bromford Flagship, and our customers as the process continues. Visit livewest.co.uk for regular updates.
Contact us by email at consultation@livewest.co.uk or, if you do not have access to email, by telephone on 01392 814500. If we cannot answer your question straight away, we will make sure we get back to you.