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Homes England will partner with groups of associations to build, says Walkley
The government’s new delivery agency will use its land assembly and risk-sharing powers to support groups of housing associations to up development, its chief executive has said.
In an interview with Inside Housing this morning, Nick Walkley outlined Homes England’s plans to use its full suite of powers to support the sector’s development ambitions.
He said this represented a move away from the “parent and child relationship” of distributing grant funding, and added that he planned to strike deals with groups of associations as well as single providers.
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It came as the government launched Homes England, the new housing delivery body which replaces the Homes and Communities Agency.
Mr Walkley said: “I have already been quite challenging to the housing association sector. My view here is we are now in a very different position to a few years ago – [associations] have the rent settlement agreed, they have the balance sheet capacity and now they need to get on and build.
“What’s going to be different from our perspective is that we are looking for a partnership approach with associations, rather than working with them on a scheme-by-scheme basis. That means help with financing, land assembly, grant – whatever we can do to help them to build more homes.
“We’re moving from what was a bit like a parent and child relationship, a bit of a bureaucratic relationship at times, to one where we sit down and look at how we can use the full range of our powers to help them.”
The concept of strategic partnerships has been pioneered by mayor Sadiq Khan in London, and was well received by the sector when he launched it last year.
Mr Walkley said the partnerships would involve Homes England’s powers to award grant, assemble land both through public sector disposals and direct land purchasing, compulsory purchase orders, technical expertise, and even direct risk-sharing.
He also went a step further than Mr Khan, saying he was willing to make agreements with groups of associations rather than individual organisations.
“We are already talking to a number of housing associations as individuals, but also as groups. We are not now going to set up a series of programmes which we ask people to apply to. The question is which associations have got long-term plans for serious development, and then what commitments do they need from us to make that happen,” he said.
“That will be different in different parts of the country – it might not be on a one-to-one basis, it might be on a place basis. And where housing associations are looking to do something different we might be willing to share some of the risk.”
Mr Walkley has issued several challenges to the housing association sector to up its development since taking over in December 2016, but said it was ultimately up to individual boards to decide development ambitions.
“This is a coalition of the willing,” he said. “We will see some associations striking out with some really challenging programmes we want to support and the question is for boards of other associations, why are you not part of that? It’s not about punitive measures – I don’t want to run that kind of agency.”
The launch of Homes England this morning follows the rebranding of the Department for Communities and Local Government as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The change was one of several first announced in last year’s Housing White Paper.
