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The planned amalgamation of OCHA and Westlea is a significant step closer after shareholders unanimously voted to support the proposal at Special General Meetings held in Chippenham and Oxford on Thursday 15 December.
This was the second of two such votes; both sets of shareholders voted in favour of the proposals at the first Special General Meetings held two weeks ago. Last night's votes were to confirm that earlier result.
The amalgamation will result in a new company called GreenSquare Homes (but known, like GreenSquare Group, as 'GreenSquare'). The revised Group structure that will result is shown below:
Since we announced the proposal earlier this year, we have been talking to all those affected, including an extensive consultation programme with residents of both Westlea and OCHA. In order to include the views of as many residents as possible in our consultation, we carried out telephone surveys, online surveys, paper surveys, reply cards, and public meetings. An information leaflet was sent out to every household – approximately 10,000 homes – containing a tear-off section where residents could ask for more information, confirm whether they would attend any of the drop-in events and make any other comments / pose questions. And during the public drop-in sessions for residents held during April in Calne, Oxford, and Wootton Bassett, residents were asked to complete paper surveys. In terms of the overall survey responses, we found that 62% of people who responded thought that the proposal was a good idea, whereas only 10% felt it was a bad idea. Others were unsure or didn’t respond.
In addition to asking whether residents thought this was a good idea, we also asked whether they would be interested in joining the new Communities Boards or wanted more information about the residents' GreenSquare Academy.
The newly-established Communities Boards will:
- Monitor value for money and check how well GreenSquare is performing.
- Work closely with Neighbourhood housing teams.
- Involve residents in deciding what needs to happen in their area.
- Be given a budget to invest in their area.
- Focus on local communities.
The new GreenSquare Academy is designed to train residents and support them in becoming more involved with us, where they want to.
Area Boards become Communities Boards
Since we first published details of the proposal we have responded to feedback from residents that calling the new boards Area Boards would be confusing as some councils already have boards with this name. We are now proposing that these boards will be known as Communities Boards.
We are also proposing to name the new Communities Boards after local rivers:
- Isis Communities Board (covering the whole of Oxfordshire)
- Avon Communities Board (Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Corsham, and Bradford on Avon)
- Marden Communities Board (Swindon, Wootton Bassett, Calne, Malmesbury, Cricklade, Purton, and villages).
It’s planned that Communities Boards will:
- Monitor value for money and check how well GreenSquare is performing.
- Work closely with Neighbourhood housing teams.
- Involve residents in deciding what needs to happen in their area.
- Be given a budget to invest in their area.
- Focus on local communities.
The new Residents’ Academy is designed to train residents and support them in becoming more involved with us, where they want to.
