Wolverhampton-based developer SH Partnerships today predicted a transformational decade for affordable housing, after £9.58 billion was announced to deliver 73,600 new homes across England.
Managing Director Chris Timmins said although the funding was vital, it was the timescale attached to it – a ten-year runway – that would accelerate affordable housing delivery across the country.
It includes £409m for the West Midlands, where SH Partnerships is based and already working with a number of registered providers to deliver affordable homes for sale and social rent.
Chris said previous national funding programmes had run on five year cycles or shorter, often leaving providers unable to commit to sites while they waited to see if the next pot of funding would arrive in time.
He said:
“I’ve watched good schemes stall for no reason other than funding uncertainty. A ten-year settlement is the difference between a scheme and a stalled site.
“This funding and the ten-year timescale could see a transformational decade for the delivery of affordable and council housing across the country.
“But money on its own doesn’t build a single home. It needs land, planning expertise and a partner who can deliver. We know that the partnership model works, and it’s good to see that registered providers as well as councils are being backed to deliver what’s needed.”
Homes England has today named the 33 strategic partners chosen to share the funding, a mix of housing associations and, for the first time, councils outside London.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the funding yesterday, saying:
“No child should be raised in a hostel room and no family should wait ten years for a front door of their own. Nearly £10 billion will go to councils and housing associations to build genuinely affordable homes, most of them for social rent, in the places where families are waiting longest.”
Chris, who previously worked in partnership housing at Lovell and Morro Partnerships before joining SH Partnerships, said councils and providers had been waiting for the funding to be unlocked.
SH Partnerships is a land-led partnership housing developer, working with registered providers and local authorities to deliver affordable and social housing across Shropshire, Staffordshire and the wider West Midlands.