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Successful bidders to add extra associations to latest strategic partner deals
Housing associations which secured ‘strategic partner’ funding last week have revealed plans to offer some of the grant to other local providers to help build the homes required.
Four of the eight partners confirmed told Inside Housing that they had either agreed or begun discussions with other housing associations to team up with and deliver the additional housing starts.
Housing secretary James Brokenshire announced last week that the government would give £497m in grant to the partners to deliver the 11,000 housing starts by March 2023.
As part of Homes England’s strategic partner agreements, associations can bring other not-for-profit organisations into their partnerships or give other associations access to grant.
Together Housing, which secured £53m last week, told Inside Housing that it had agreed partnerships with Yorkshire-based associations Accent and WDH to help deliver 1,152 additional homes.
Longhurst Group and Nottingham Community Housing Association, which are both part of the Blue Skies Consortium, said they would begin dialogue with fellow Blue Skies members with a view to incorporating their plans where appropriate.
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The Blue Skies Consortium is a collection of 18 housing association members which work together to deliver homes across the Midlands.
A spokesperson for Longhurst added that the partnership was also open to the possibility of bringing other organisations into the partnership.
Torus said it aspired to sub-contract 20% of its £66.4m grant to smaller housing associations, which would deliver around 400 additional homes.
The 40,000-home association said the additional funds would increase its overall development programme by 29% – approximately 1,800 units.
Bromford and Your Housing Group, which secured a combined grant worth £154m, said that while they had no plans to partner at the moment, they would not rule out partnerships in the future.
A spokesperson for Bromford said that discussions were ongoing with smaller housing associations and it was too early to provide details but said adding more parties was “very much an option it would consider”.
WHG would not rule out future partnerships in its chosen areas but said these decisions would be made once it started exploring how its grant could be used.
Curo and Swan said that they were working together to plan a detailed programme, while Yorkshire Housing said it is intending to deliver all homes independent of other associations at this stage.
The deals announced last Wednesday bring the total spending through the strategic partnerships up to £1.7bn, with 23 strategic partners expected to start 40,000 affordable homes by March 2022 (see table below).
Housing associations which secured money in the first two waves of strategic partnerships have also looked to use grant to support smaller more localised organisations.
Brian Ham, executive director of development at Home Group, said that the association had “conversations running” with smaller housing associations in the North East that were struggling to get developments off the ground.
As part of the deal it would offer a “development service”, where it would use the grant to develop the site and then reflect the grant in the price it sells the homes back to the local housing associations.
Mr Ham said: “It works well because they get the benefit of the discounted price but we don’t lose control over how the money is spent.”
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
