Large Midlands association joins Homes England strategic partnership

WM Housing has now agreed to deliver 680 of the 2,257 home starts promised by Matrix by March 2022. This will see WM Housing increase its yearly affordable development output from 400 to 550 homes.

Nick Byrne, executive director of development at WM Housing, told Inside Housing that the association had considered bidding in the first two strategic partnership waves but decided against it due to the high delivery commitments.

He said: “The Matrix Housing Partnership is absolutely the right partner for us to be working with because it is made up of organisations we already have great relationships with in our region.”

Mr Byrne said that the group had already earmarked sites to use the Homes England money on in 2019/20 but said the security of the money would allow it to pursue new sites in the future.

Under the agreement with Homes England, WM Housing will still be able to access continuous market engagement funding – Homes England’s other funding stream for individual developments.

The association has also said it would consider using Accord’s Local Homes factory opened last year to deliver some of the houses in its development pipeline, dependent on cost compared with traditional build.

Last month housing secretary James Brokenshire announced that the government would give £497m in grant to its third wave of strategic partners to deliver the 11,000 housing starts by March 2023.

Inside Housing reported that a number of the successful third wave bidders have added or intend to add new associations to their partnerships to deliver more homes.