By Nearly £500 million will be made available to housing associations in the UK to build more than 11,000 new affordable properties across the country, communities secretary James Brokenshire has announced.
This additional funding is designed to support the government’s effort in reaching its target of building 300,000 properties a year by the mid-2020s, explained Brokenshire at the Building London Summit 2019.
The strategic partnerships, agreed by Homes England, are designed to give the successful housing associations the freedom to spend their allocated budget on the developments that have the biggest impact, according to Brokenshire.
The Housing Associations to benefit from this funding in what is the third wave of strategic partnerships are Bromford, Curo & Swan, Liverpool Mutual Homes & Torus, Longhurst & Nottingham Community Housing Association, Together, Walsall Housing Group, Yorkshire and Your Housing Group.
Part of the plan will involve the building of rooftop homes across London through a £9 million funding deal with Apex Airspace Developments, a property development company that specialises in utilising the unused airspace above residential, commercial and public buildings.
These homes, which will largely be built off-site, will be modular in design and winched onto their intended London rooftops once they’re completed, according to Brokenshire. In total, 78 rooftop homes will be built during the three year deal with the first of these homes to be completed by summer this year.
As things stand, these rooftop properties will be built across Tooting, Wanstead, Walthamstow, Putney and Wallington. Local authorities are also encouraged to follow this pattern and use the airspace above existing residential and commercial premises as a potential location to build new homes.
Talking at the Building London Summit 2019, Brokenshire added that 222,000 new homes were delivered last year, which is the highest level for a decade and up 12 per cent from 2017. He also commented: “By providing targeted investment in affordable homes and funding innovative projects to build rooftop properties, we are making our housing market work for everyone.
“Our £500 million funding boost for housing associations will help them build thousands of extra affordable homes – including properties for social rent. These measures are all part of our plans to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.”
Sir Edward Lister, chairman at Homes England, commented: “I welcome the new strategic partners who share our ambition to build better homes faster.
“Our new ways of working with the sector means that housing associations can use their funding flexibly across their development programmes and respond quickly to local housing demand and a changing market.”
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