Consortium seeks to add housing to scope of multi-million regeneration fund
North west’s £350m housing cash bid
Councils in the north west plan to expand a £350 million pot of regeneration money to fund housing projects.
At the end of July, the European Investment Bank selected a consortium led by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities as the preferred bidder to run the region’s element of the north west urban investment fund.
The consortium must spend the cash on economic development or regeneration. However, AGMA is in discussions about how the fund could expand to include housing, low carbon projects and transport.
There is no indication of how much money could be generated for housing, but projects involved must answer the objectives of the fund: to generate a return on the investment and recycle that return into further development.
The fund, which will start with £60 million, is ‘evergreen’, which means it recycles all returns on investments back into new projects. It was set up using the European Commission’s joint European support for sustainable investment in city areas fund.
The consortium includes AGMA, Cumbria, Cheshire and Lancashire councils, CB Richard Ellis and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.
Early discussions about the fund’s expansion will include whether to merge the housing function into the main evergreen allocation, or whether to set up a separate fund.
A spokesperson for the consortium said there was an aspiration to expand the scope of the fund to include financing major housing projects but that work towards this was ‘very much in its early stage’.
The initial cash for the fund comes from the European regional development fund, which is supplying £20 million, with an additional £10 million from the North West Regional Development Agency. That, together with £30 million of public sector match funding, could mean regeneration projects in the region receive £350 million over the next 10 years.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester Council, said: ‘In these challenging times when public resources are extremely limited it is important that we continue to deliver as many regeneration priorities as possible by unlocking new ways of finding investment.’
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