Midlands poverty relief and sheltered housing charity Yardley Great Trust has taken over the smaller housing provider Carrs Lane Homes.

According to Yardley’s housing manager Lynn Bailey, the trustees of Carrs Lane Homes were all approaching retirement and felt the charity’s beneficiaries could be served just as well if the organisation was to become part of a bigger provider.

The held a lengthy “tender process”, inviting expressions of interest from a number of potential suitors before dissolving Carrs Lane Homes and gifting all the charity’s assets and contracts to Yardley.

Yardley Great Trust has been serving the community in and around Yardley since 1355, and was incorporated in its current incarnation in 1987.  Its latest annual report, for 2009, shows it had income of £1.6m though a decision, after consultation with residents, to withdraw from the government’s Supporting People programme in 2010 saw this drop considerably the following year.

Carrs Lane Homes, which is also Birmingham-based, manages 47 units of housing for older people within ten almshouses.  The day-to-day management of these was carried out by Accord Housing Association but this management has now transferred to Yardley, as have Carrs’ three staff.

Carrs Lane Homes had income of £245,500 in 2009.