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Large Southern housing association shifts to land-led development

Large housing association Sovereign is shifting its focus towards land-led development, its chief executive has told Inside Housing.

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Mark Washer, chief executive of Sovereign Housing
Mark Washer, chief executive of Sovereign Housing
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Large housing association Sovereign is shifting its focus towards land-led development, its chief executive has told Inside Housing #ukhousing

In an interview, Mark Washer said that despite Sovereign having built 85% of its housing through Section 106 historically, it would now shift towards being the lead developer on more sites.

Section 106 is a mechanism through which local authorities require developers to provide a percentage of affordable housing on their developments. This housing is then managed by housing associations.


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In the past, Sovereign has focused on such housing as its main way of growing. Now, however, it is set to develop more of its own sites.

Mr Washer told Inside Housing: “We’re on a bit of a journey. We need to do land-led. The thing for me in the context of land-led and taking the lead, and many housing associations are on this journey, is that it really puts us in control.”

Sovereign built 1,200 homes last year. It predicts that it will build 1,600 homes this year and hopes to get this figure up to 1,900 eventually.

Mr Washer added: “There will be some larger-scale schemes than we have historically been used to. It remains to be seen what we will end up doing, but I certainly think that part of the solution to the supply crisis is new settlements.”

At Theresa May’s September speech to the National Housing Summit, she told the audience they needed to move away from relying on Section 106 and instead do more land-led development.

Click here to read the full interview with Mr Washer

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