Competition watchdog asked to review GMCA’s brownfield fund
A government watchdog has been asked to review a brownfield fund that set aside £500m to builders and housing associations delivering homes on previously developed sites in the North West.
Competition watchdog asked to review GMCA’s brownfield fund #UKhousingA government watchdog has been asked to review a brownfield fund that set aside £500m for homes to be delivered on previously developed sites in the North West #UKhousingThe Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU) accepted a request for a report advising the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) on its Brownfield Housing Scheme.
The initiative is designed to award up to £20m at a time to reduce the cost of delivering homes on urban sites in the city region.
Part of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the SAU provides independent, non-binding advice evaluating public bodies’ own assessments of their schemes against the requirements of the Subsidy Control Act 2022.
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The Greater Manchester Brownfield Housing Scheme is designed to provide up to £500m over the next five years.
Funding will include £135m from the GMCA’s own Brownfield Housing Fund and £150m from the Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land Fund run by Homes England. The remainder is expected to come from future allocations.
Awards from the scheme would be designed to help plug viability gaps and be capped at £20m at a time.
Costs that could be covered with the subsidies include site acquisition, demolition, remediation, utility provision, residential construction and related infrastructure.
Beneficiaries of subsidies are expected to include housing developers, registered providers of social housing, councils and other public and private-sector organisations.
Funding may be awarded in the form of grants, sub market-rate loans or equity.
GMCA hopes the initiative will support the delivery of at least 10,000 homes by the summer of 2029.
More affordable homes were built in Manchester in 2023-24 than in any other year in the past decade, according to a recent council report.
Interested parties for the fund have until Friday 2 August to send in their comments to the SAU, which will publish its report in early September.
Inside Housing understands that the process the scheme is going through with the SAU of the CMA is part of a normal routine for any subsidy provider of this kind.
It is the second time in as many month that the competition watchdog has announced it will investigate a major sector funding pot.
At the start of last month, the CMA revealed it was assessing a government department’s compliance against legal requirements for the latest wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF).
The watchdog is evaluating a new subsidy being proposed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for inclusion in Wave 3 of the SHDF.
A total of £1.21bn will be spent on the latest wave of the scheme, which distributes grant to housing providers to spend on energy efficiency upgrades.
Wave 3 offers more flexibility than previous waves of the SHDF, as well as an optional grant incentive for landlords that upgrade homes on the gas grid to low-carbon heat systems.
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