FEARS have been raised about the future for social housing tenants in Worcester if a plan put forward by Fortis Living to merge with another housing association comes off.

Fortis Living, which is based in the city took over the management of what were Worcester City council houses and flats when Worcester City Homes merged with Festival Homes in 2014.

Now the company wants to merge with another housing association, Waterloo Housing Group based in Solihull.

The new association would own and manage a huge number of properties, around 45,000 with 120,000 tenants across the whole of central England.

Fortis Living’s website says the merger would allow the new group to: “build more affordable homes – around 2,000 each year within 5 years',improve the quality and range of local services , improve our repairs and maintenance service – we will reinvest at £50 million a year into our existing homes and invest more in digital services.”

The associations aim to merge at the start of October.

But one Worcester City councillor, Roger Berry (Lab, Gorse Hill) has raised the matter for discussion at the council’s Communities Committee meeting next week.

He said: “The worry is that this new association will be too big and I’m concerned about the future for residents in Worcester. Fortis Living is already consolidating its offices in Worcester, and will be closing its Malvern and Warndon offices.Waterloo Housing has lots more properties in the East Midlands, so how long would Fortis Living’s office stay here in the city? Will the new association move its offices to, say, Birmingham, equidistant between the two?”

Cllr Berry added: “They have proposed this merger without once talking to the council. I’m worried about what seems a lack of accountability.”

A spokeswoman for Fortis Living said that all its tenants were informed of the plan in December and added: “We have no plans to move away from Worcester – quite the opposite. We are just about to start on site building our new Worcester base."

The communities committee will meet at the Guildhall at 7pm on Wednesday January 31.