| Formation | 1963 |
|---|---|
| Type | Housing association |
| Purpose | Housing management, affordable home development, housing related support. |
| Headquarters | Tewkesbury |
| Location | |
Region served | Central England and South West |
Chief Executive | Robert Nettleton |
| Staff | 1800 [1] |
| Website | www.bromford.co.uk |
Bromford is a housing association providing affordable housing and specialist housing support services. The businesses covers a wide geographical area, predominately Central England and the South West, which includes Gloucestershire, the West Midlands, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. Bromford also incorporates Bromford Homes, an outright sale business arm providing shared ownership homes to assist private/social renters move onto the property ladder.
In summer 2024 Bromford announced plans to merge with Norfolk-based Flagship Housing Group, a merger which completed on 28 February 2025. [2] Bromford Flagship owns and manages approximately 82,000 homes across east, central and south west England, making it one of the largest housing providers in the United Kingdom. [3] As of 31 March 2025, the organisation serves approximately 170,000 customers. [4]
The merger unlocked approximately £1.9 billion in additional financial capacity over 15 years, positioning Bromford Flagship to deliver 2,000 new homes annually, with an ambition for 50% to be social rent housing. [5] This would enable 7,000 more social rent homes than the two organisations could have completed independently. [5]
In 1918 rented housing comprised 70% of the market but only a fraction of these homes were deemed to be ‘affordable’ or ‘social.’ There were a number of charitable housing bodies such as the Guinness Trust and Peabody Trust, and some industrial companies who supplied rented homes for their workers but they were relatively small in number. Local authorities only started to provide rented homes in any volume after the Great War. The development of new affordable housing by housing associations (HA) was an objective of the established charitable organisations such as Peabody and Cadbury but they expanded only slowly until the 1960s.
Bromford Housing Association Limited, named after Bromford Bridge railway station in the Bromford area of Birmingham, was formed by a group of housing sector professionals in 1963. They formed a management committee run by quantity surveyor and Chairman Charles Bucknall, estate agent Robert Oulsnam [6] and solicitor Keith James. In order to take advantage of loans from the new Housing Corporation an entirely new association had to be formed as a society. This became ‘Second Bromford Housing Society’.
Bromford's first scheme was built at West Heath Road in Birmingham. By 1990, the housing association had grown to own 3,000 homes. In the same year it merged with Carinthia Housing Association, before merging again with Cheltenham & District Housing Association in 1996. Bromford grew through developing its own homes and through further mergers with Homezone Housing Association and Fosseway Housing in 2006. In 2014 the housing association was renamed Bromford, at which point it had 27,000.
In July 2018, Bromford successfully completed a partnership with South West-based Merlin Housing Society to create a new organisation which retained the Bromford name. The following January, Bromford acquired Tewkesbury-based Severn Vale Housing. [7] As of 2024 Bromford owns and manages around 47,000 homes [8] and provides services for approximately 110,000 people [9] living in those homes. Bromford's 2023 - 2027 Strategy set out its goal to build 11,000 new homes by 2030 and to be the leading developer of affordable homes in Gloucestershire and the wider M5 corridor. [10]
At the completion of Bromford's merger with Flagship Housing Group in 2025, Bromford's Chief Executive Robert Nettleton was appointed as chief executive officer of the merged organisation. [2] Paul Walsh continued as chief finance officer, having held the same position at Bromford prior to the merger. [2] Bromford Flagship's Board comprises 10 non-executive directors and three executive directors.
At the end of the 2023 - 24 financial year, Bromford recorded a turnover of £314m, and a net surplus of £67m (up from £64m the previous year). [11] In January 2024, Bromford raised a further £129m of investment through two new revolving credit facilities from Lloyds Bank and Barclays. [12]
In 2023/24, Bromford invested £299m in completing 1,191 new affordable homes, 256 of which were built utilising funding from Homes England and 551 were for social rent, making it the country's biggest builder of social rent homes. [13]