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Housing association negotiating ‘unprecedented’ joint ventures with NHS trusts
A large housing association is negotiating “unprecedented” joint ventures with NHS trusts, it has told Inside Housing.
Under the deals, Metropolitan Thames Valley – which was formed today through a merger between Metropolitan and Thames Valley – would use NHS land to build and manage homes which the NHS trusts would then own, enabling it to receive long-term income from the rents.
Social landlords have worked with NHS trusts before, but usually an association would buy land from a trust. Bruce Moore, chief executive of huge supported housing association Housing & Care 21, agreed that an arrangement where the NHS keeps ownership of sites was “unprecedented”.
He added: “It would be good to have somebody put a deal together, as that creates a precedent that people can reference and work from, so that would be really positive.”
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Inside Housing understands that the association is currently in negotiations with three NHS trusts on deals of this kind.
Kush Rawal, commercial director at Metropolitan Thames Valley, told Inside Housing: “It’s about saying, ‘You sell it today, you sell your land off today, that’s it, you’re done and dusted.’
“For a lot of these trusts, that bit of land might be the jewel in their crown, that one asset, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here, what we’re saying is, ‘We’ll help generate an income for you from that asset for a long period of time.’”
Metropolitan Thames Valley plans for the homes to serve a variety of purposes. This could include acting as accommodation for people who are ready to leave hospital but not ready to return home.
Mr Rawal said the joint ventures could also deliver housing for key NHS staff, many of whom are finding themselves priced out of living near the hospitals where they work.
He cited a study by the Royal College of Nursing from 2016, which recorded 40% of London nurses saying that they expected to leave the capital in the next five years because of the cost of housing.
Research by the New Economics Foundation in January, meanwhile, found that most housing on former NHS sites was unaffordable to nurses.
Salford-based Salix Homes signed a deal with an NHS trust in August to build homes exclusively for local hospital staff, although these homes would be owned by the housing association.
Asked about Metropolitan Thames Valley’s deal, Sue Sutton, executive director of operations at Salix Homes, said: “Projects like these represent just one of many areas where health and housing industries can work closer together to overcome some of the most critical issues facing our sectors.”
Update: at 10.54 on 8.10.18 This story was updated to account for the merger between Thames Valley and Metropolitan, which was completed shortly after the story was first published.
