Orbit Group is a group of housing association

Housing association

Housing associations in the United Kingdom are independent not-for-profit bodies that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in housing need. Any trading surplus is used to maintain existing homes and to help finance new ones...

s providing affordable housing

Affordable housing

Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...

 to around 33,000 households in England, mainly in the Midlands, East Anglia and the south east.

History

Orbit Housing Association was established in 1966. In 1998 the company established Orbit Bexley Housing Association to take on the management of the 4,500 transferred from the London Borough of Bexley, under a process known as large scale voluntary transfer (LSVT). Thanet Community Housing Association joined the group in 2004 and brought with it stock in east Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

. In October 2007 Orbit Bexley and Thanet Community were merged to form Orbit South.

Orbit is active in promoting shared ownership as well as providing homes for rent. In 2010, Orbit helped 117 families through the Government's 'Mortgage Rescue' scheme, more than any other association.