Housing authority has announced strategic partnerships with eight housing associations
Homes England has announced strategic partnerships with eight housing associations to deliver more affordable homes across the UK.
The first wave of construction activity, funded by a 拢560m package, will deliver 23,500 new homes by March 2022, 14,280 of which will be affordable.
The government鈥檚 housing agency said its first partners were emh group, Great Places, Home Group, Hyde, L&Q, Matrix Partnership, Places for People and Sovereign/Liverty.
The deals include homes for social rent in expensive areas, with the funding available boosted by the government鈥檚 announcement of an additional 拢1.67bn for the 拢9bn affordable homes programme.
Housing secretary James Brokenshire said: 鈥淭here is no mission more urgent than making our housing market work and we are investing 拢9bn in building affordable homes.
鈥淭his 拢590m fund we are giving Homes England will help housing associations accelerate the delivery of affordable properties communities need.鈥�
Homes England will re-open discussions with the sector this summer on a second tranche of strategic partnerships.
The national housing agency will also be looking at the lessons learned from the first wave of deals to see what flexibilities can be offered to site-by-site based bids.
The deals come six months after Homes England chief executive Nick Walkley challenged the sector to form a new type of partnership with the government in order to increase the supply of affordable homes.
Walkley said: 鈥淲hen we launched Homes England, I called on housing associations to work with us to develop ambitious strategic partnerships that would help them to get on and build significantly more affordable homes than they were previously planning.
鈥淎fter a huge amount of hard work, these new deals show our real determination to combine ambition, flexibilities and the full range of our resources to change the way we deliver affordable homes.鈥�
No comments yet