Clarion’s development chief talks housebuilding ambitions, SAHP bids and why housing associations make perfect master developers

We’ll start with those SAHP bids. While Mr Cook cannot talk about specifics while Clarion is still going through the system, he is bullish about its chances of building many more homes. In 2024-25 it completed 1,727 homes, according to our last Biggest Builders survey. The survey for 2026 will be published in late June.

“About 3,000 homes per annum is around about our financial capacity now,” he says. “Our starts this year were just over 2,000, which is the most we’ve had since our merger in 2015... so, we’re going in the right direction and we’re on track with our pipeline [so that] in about three to four years’ time, we’ll be delivering 3,000 homes.”

This would be at the higher end of historic delivery in the sector, and would leave Clarion “up there in the top two or three” developing housing associations over the next few years, Mr Cook thinks.

Our conversation takes place at an interesting time for social landlords with housebuilding ambitions. A couple of days before we speak, it emerged that both Homes England and the GLA have asked providers to re-profile their bids for the SAHP because of the programme being heavily oversubscribed, particularly due to bidders putting a strong focus on the early years of the programme.

As Mr Cook puts it, “The sector was asked to put ambitious bids in, which it has.”

Behind the scenes, some in the sector have voiced concern at the push for them to re-profile. Mr Cook is more sanguine, but he hints that the challenge is now back with government.

“I can build more homes in the regions [than in London] for the same amount of capital, and we are capital-constrained”

“When you’ve got an ambition, you have got to match it,” he says. “Fair play to the sector. I think the sector has done what it was asked to do. Now it has got to be matched. So, it will be interesting over the summer how much of our ambition gets fulfilled. But we’ve got a programme we are chomping at the bit to get on with.”

While Mr Cook cannot talk in detail, he does confirm that Clarion has put in “an ambitious bid” for the ‘strategic partnership plus’ (SP+) route, available for larger-scale delivery. SP+ partners must commit to building at least 4,000 homes by 31 March 2036, including 1,000 homes to be completed by 31 March 2029.

“We’ve got the pipeline,” he says. “We can press the button as soon as the contract comes along.”

Given that Homes England and the GLA had invited providers to re-profile or resubmit their bids, is this something Clarion has done?

“I won’t say if I’m re-profiling or not,” Mr Cook says. “But what we have got is a track record of delivery and I think that is really, really important.

“And I hope when they are assessing the value for money in the bids, track record and delivery counts for a lot, because that is what it is all about. One thing we can stand behind [on development], our board has stood behind the business through hard times, our chief executive and the chief financial officer, we’ve all done what we said we are going to do on the tin.”

While Clarion’s plans to increase delivery mean good news for thousands of families, there are a few notes of caution. London in particular remains tricky.

“London’s got to the point where viability is unbelievably challenged, really challenged,” Mr Cook says. 

“The value bucket is smaller than the cost bucket and that is a real worry for London. We’ve been able to progress because we’ve [rebalanced development programmes] to predominantly social rent and we’ve worked incredibly hard with the GLA, who have been supportive on grant funding.

“Our balance sheet, which is strong, and us subsidising social rent in London as a group, and the GLA helping funders through that, [have] allowed us to deliver.”

Clarion is one of the capital’s biggest builders and remains committed to an ambitious future programme in London. But a combination of those challenges and other opportunities means it has shifted its delivery priorities.

“I can build more homes in the regions for the same amount of capital, and we are capital-constrained,” Mr Cook says. “So, you are going to put your money where you get the better value.”

What does this mean in practice?

“We are absolutely committed to London,” Mr Cook says. “We have got 55,000 homes there and London has a big need. But when I came to the business seven years ago we were 80% London and South East-centric, 20% the rest of the country, and now our balance [in terms of development] is 35% London and the South East and 65% rest of the UK.”

“We are bringing forward the affordable elements at pace on our balance sheet with grant funding, rather than sit around twiddling our thumbs hoping the world will get better”

We meet today in the lounge of a Leeds hotel – a city that is set to benefit from this rebalancing. In 2020, Latimer (Clarion’s development arm) acquired a former chemical works site about 20 minutes from the city centre, next to the River Aire.

The plan is to deliver 1,800 net zero homes on the site, 50% affordable. In Manchester it is a similar story, with Latimer acquiring 1.24 acres of the Boddingtons Brewery site, which will include 505 apartments, 60% of which will be for social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership.

“We’ve built the capability and the team, so we’ve got 50 staff operating across the M62 corridor into the Midlands, and things like that,” Mr Cook says. “We’re delivering now proportionally more outside of the South East and that will continue to be the strategy. There is a definite commitment to the capital, but there is also a need everywhere across the country.”

Beyond need, there are other factors that influence where a capital-constrained business invests.

“We go where we feel welcome and valued,” Mr Cook adds. “I think that is really important. We’re deploying around £600m of capital a year into housing, which is a lot of cash, and we’re deploying it where we can work with good local authorities who are ambitious.”

Manchester – which is often lauded for its desire to drive investment and development – is a case in point. “We’ve gone from building nothing in Manchester to close to 2,000 homes over the last five years.”

When Clarion spoke about its plans to build a large number of social rented homes in the city, the attitude was very much that officials would “walk over broken glass in bare feet to make this work”, Mr Cook explains.

Speaking of organisations looking to drive delivery of new homes, what are Mr Cook’s hopes for the new National Housing Bank, which went live in April? He sees the new institution’s job as “basically filling the gap now that nobody else can fill”.

“Normally on a development you would have your value – what you’d sell it for or what it would be worth. Then you have all your costs, and somewhere you’d have some equity and you put some debt in, but now there’s a gap because nobody wants to do it, nobody’s got enough equity, and that’s what really the [National] Housing Bank is. It’s a bit like mezzanine lending, it’s in there to help get things going.”

The fact there are so many schemes that need help to get going will be one of the big challenges for the nascent bank, he thinks.

“You’ve probably got half the country scrabbling for them at the moment,” he says. “So, it will take some time for it to come through and then those big announcements need to turn into projects. We can all make big announcements.”

In other words: “Allocation is one thing, actually delivering is a different thing.”

Master development

Which brings us to one of the central arguments Mr Cook is looking to make today – that housing associations have a greater role to play as master developers (a single entity that takes control of large-scale developments, often with multiple phases, overseeing things like obtaining land, planning permission, construction and sales).

Housing associations’ unique outlook, with an interest in the long-term success of homes and places, but also an ability to deliver in tough market conditions, means this is a role they are ideally suited to, Mr Cook argues.

“Our Merton regeneration is a good example,” he says. “It is probably around 50% private sale, but we’re not going to deliver any of that in the current climate, because there is not a climate to sell it into. So, we are bringing forward the affordable elements at pace on our balance sheet with grant funding, rather than sit around twiddling our thumbs hoping the world will get better.

“I think that [master development] is a really strong place for the sector. I think it is something we can do more of.”

More could and should be done to get the housing market moving too, he thinks. One thing that could make a difference would be raising the household income limits to qualify for shared ownership, from the existing caps of £90,000 a year in London and £80,000 a year outside.

Currently, a household made up of two teachers who have been qualified for just five years (based on teacher pay scales) would not qualify for shared ownership.

While salaries have risen, the income limits for shared ownership haven’t shifted in 10 years. A new cap of £120,000 in London and £100,000 outside London should be introduced in order to reach “a whole significant group of new people” and “help the sector because it would actually give us more capacity”, Mr Cook believes.