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Government announces deal for 10,000 homes on MoD land
The government has announced a new partnership to deliver more than 10,000 homes on Ministry of Defence (MoD) land across the UK, amid a slew of funding announcements for new homes totalling £250m.
The partnership between Homes England and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) will be unveiled by housing secretary James Brokenshire today, and will see the government’s delivery agency help deliver the new homes across seven MoD sites.
The other announcements are allocations from existing government funding streams for unlocking housing developments.
They are a £157m package to build new roads in Devon and Carlisle, which is supposed more than 12,500 new homes, a £78m loan for 1,500 homes at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, and £10.6m to build 670 offsite homes in the South East.
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Homes England and the DIO have now signed a memorandum of understanding securing the partnership, which will see the land remain in the ownership of the MoD while Homes England prepares the land through planning and investment.
The seven sites will be: Claro and Deverell Barracks in Ripon, North Yorkshire; RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire; MOD Site 4 in Stafford; MDPGA Wethersfield in Braintree, Essex; Swynnerton Training Camp in Stone, Staffordshire; Prince William of Gloucester Barracks in Grantham, Lincolnshire; and Chetwynd Barracks in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire.
There is also an option to use the partnership to open up more surplus army land for development in the future.
Nick Walkley, chief executive of Homes England, said the deal would allow local authorities and communities to progress schemes faster and more efficiently.
The £157m for the new roads will be allocated from the government’s £5bn Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF), with £55m being spent on road and infrastructure improvements in Devon to open up sites for 2,500 homes south west of Exeter.
The remaining £102m will fund a new motorway link road between Carlisle and the M6 to unlock the 10,000-home St Cuthbert’s Garden Village scheme.
The schemes are the latest infrastructure projects to secure money through the HIF, after the Greater London Authority was able to secure £291m to expand the Docklands Light Railway to bring 18,000 homes in east London in November.
A total of £886m was allocated to 133 local authority projects worth £10m and under in February last year.
The £78m loan for Olympic Park will be allocated from the £4.5bn Home Building Fund and will go towards the development of two new neighbourhoods of 1,500 homes.
A Places for People Homes and Balfour Beatty Investments joint venture will be given the money to develop the site which will include 450 affordable homes, with a completion date of 2028.
The 670 offsite homes will be the first project to be funded under the £450m Accelerated Construction programme. The £10.6m will go to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council to deliver the homes across three sites, with work due to start in June.
