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Chancellor announces strategic partnerships with nine housing associations
Nine housing associations have signed new strategic partnerships with the government to deliver more than 13,000 homes, Philip Hammond has announced.
Presenting the Autumn Budget to parliament today, the chancellor revealed that the government has allocated £653m to nine housing associations.
These allocations came from the existing funds in the Affordable Homes Programme and follow Homes England’s announcement in July that it had signed eight partnerships with associations to deliver 14,280 homes.
The deals, therefore, will run until 2021/22, when the current programme ends. The prime minister has already announced £2bn for the following programme in 2028/29.
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Mr Hammond also announced £500m of extra funding over five years for the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which pays for local authorities to build infrastructure that enables more homes to be built.
Key Budget measures for housing:
- £500m in housing infrastructure fund to unlock a further 650,000 homes
- The next wave of strategic partnerships with nine housing associations which will deliver 13,000 homes
- British business bank guarantees for small and medium-sized house builders
- ‘Simplification’ of process to convert commercial properties to new homes
- Providing funding to empower 500 neighbourhoods to allocate homes to local people in perpetuity
- Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme extended two years to 2023 and limited to first-time buyers
- Retrospective inclusion of first-time buyers of shared ownership in the stamp duty relief
With the additional money, he said, this fund will enable 650,000 new homes to be built in total.
He also allocated £291m of previously announced money from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to a scheme in east London proposed by the Greater London Authority.
It has proposed improving the Docklands Light Railway in order to unlock 18,000 new homes in the area.
Other measures intended to invest in building new housing included £1bn of loans to small and medium-sized house builders, £75m from the Home Building Fund for property investment company St Modwen, and a new five-year strategic business plan for Homes England to be published tomorrow.
An announcement on a new wave of strategic partnerships has been expected in the autumn after Inside Housing reported back in July that discussions had begun.
The money comes with conditions from Homes England, the government’s housing delivery agency.
It has told housing associations that if they are to take part in this wave of strategic partnerships, they must commit to an additional 1,000 grant-funded affordable homes and a 25% increase in the building of affordable homes.
A guide to strategic partnerships and the deals announced so far
Under strategic partnerships, housing associations agree to increase their development programmes by a specified number of homes in return for extra funding for the government.
Unlike some other government funding programmes, they can use the new funding flexibly across their development programme, determining the tenure of affordable homes closer to completion following negotiations with Homes England.
The following housing associations were confirmed as strategic partners on 30 January 2019:
| Housing association | Grant | No of additional starts to March 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Bromford | £66.4m | 1,400 |
| Curo and Swan | £51.1m | 1,067 |
| Liverpool Mutual Homes and Torus | £66.4m | 1,757 |
| Longhurst and Nottingham Community Housing Association | £71.7m | 1,685 |
| Together Housing Group | £53m | 1,152 |
| WHG | £38.7m | 1,000 |
| Yorkshire Housing | £61.8m | 1,300 |
| Your Housing Group | £87.5m | 2,315 |
Homes England announced the following partnerships in October 2018:
| Housing association | Grant | No of additional starts to 31 March 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Guinness/Stonewater | £224m | 4,500 |
| Optivo | £44.9m | 1,000 |
| Orbit | £128.8m | 2,762 |
| Platform Housing Group | £71.8m | 1,800 |
| Southern Housing Group | £55.1m | 1,005 |
| Thirteen | £40m | 1,000 |
| Vivid | £88.2m | 1,408 |
Table published by Homes England on 31 October 2018
Homes England also earlier this year confirmed the following partnerships:
| Housing association | Grant | No of additional affordable starts to 31 March 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| EMH Group | £30.5m | 748 |
| Great Places | £29.2m | 750 |
| Home Group | £85m | 2,300 |
| Hyde | £95.4m | 1,623 |
| L&Q | £85m | 1,724 |
| Matrix Partnership | £77m | 2,257 |
| Places for People | £74m | 2,603 |
| Sovereign/Liverty | £111.5m | 2,275 |
Table published by Homes England on 3 July 2018
