Homes England agrees £55m of deals to help councils with stalled schemes
Homes England has agreed £55m of funding deals with 12 local authorities in England to help finance site preparation for sites that will include more than 4,000 homes.
The developments, which are spread across the country from Newcastle to Dorset, will be able to use the cash to accelerate delivery and enable the use of innovative construction methods to speed up the building process.
The largest of the sites is a 400-acre plot at Horton Heath, Eastleigh. Eastleigh Borough Council purchased the site in 2018 and the development will benefit from £20.8m of government funding to accelerate the delivery of around 1,400 one, two, three and four-bedroom homes.
Other schemes to receive funding include a 200-home development in Pendle, which received £1.1m, and one in Gateshead, which received £1.8m for 191 homes.
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The money has been awarded through the government’s £450m Local Authority Accelerated Construction Programme, which aims to support councils to prepare their sites for development. It encourages the use of innovative construction methods to build the homes and a wider range of builders, particularly small and medium-sized companies.
The first scheme to benefit from the funding pot was a site in Welwyn Garden City, which received £10.6m to prepare three sites for 670 new homes in February.
Stephen Kinsella, executive director of land at Homes England, said: “This funding will enable local authorities to accelerate housing delivery by enabling them to prepare sites for development and bring forward the construction of new homes incorporating modern methods of construction.”
Housing minister Kit Malthouse said: “We haven’t built enough homes in this country for far too long – and our Accelerated Construction Programme is here to change that, and fast.”
