Thrive and Watford Community Housing formally merge as Rachel Hatfield named interim chair
Newly-merged Chime Homes has announced Rachel Hatfield as its interim chair, following the death of Hattie Llewelyn-Davies.
Chime formally came into existence yesterday with the completion of the merger of Thrive Homes and Watford Community Housing. Thrive Homes transferred its engagements into WCHT to create a landlord with around 13,500 homes.
Llewelyn-Davies had been chair designate for Chime but died earlier this month after a short illness.
Hatfield, a lawyer who has been vice-chair of Thrive since 2021, will serve as interim chair of the merged organisation until a decision on a permanent holder of the post is made “in due course”.
Chime will be run as a “community gateway” housing association, with tenants heavily involved in the running of the organisation.
The two providers have previously said the merger “aims to improve services for residents by combining resources, expertise and operational capacity, to better serve communities and address the growing demand for high-quality social and affordable housing.”
They believe a merger could enable them to more easily improve services, increase investment in energy efficiency works and build new homes.
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