West Midlands mayoral candidates told to deliver ‘ambitious and investable’ devolved affordable homes programme if elected

After a transition period, the West Midlands Combined Authority will receive full control over the area’s AHP alongside strategic planning powers, which will be exercised in partnership with Homes England.

“We need the next AHP that will be devolved to the combined authority to be both ambitious and deliverable, offering more people the opportunity to rent or part-buy a home in an affordable way,” the housing associations said.

A mayoral AHP “should become an investible proposition”, they added, attracting investment into the West Midlands, alongside “the promotion of public sector land reform and timely planning decisions”.

The landlords also called for a devolved decarbonisation fund, which they said would help housing associations to “increase the scale and scope of retrofit programmes” and ensure that all housing association homes reach a minimum Energy Performance Certificate of Band C by 2030.

In addition, the manifesto urged mayoral candidates to open up funding from the devolved AHP to regeneration projects, where “the right decision will be to knock down old and poorly designed properties” and build new homes.

WMHAP is chaired by Kevin Rodgers, chief executive of Citizen Housing, and its 17 members collectively own and manage 200,000 homes.

Ruth Cooke, vice chair of WMHAP and chief executive of GreenSquareAccord, said: “We, as a region, have the opportunity over the next four years to increase the amount of truly affordable homes built in our region, create places where people not just want to live and stay but that they want to invest in, and lead the country in the retrofitting of older homes with modern green technology.

“If we miss this opportunity and fall behind it will not just be our tenants who suffer, it will be our region, too.”

Since last summer, Homes England has allowed regeneration projects to access grant funding under the nationwide AHP.