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Homes England partners can access more than £700m SAHP cap if they ‘demonstrate good deliverability’
Homes England’s director of affordable housing has said partners may be able to access funding above the £700m cap under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), if the agency has “certainty and confidence” in deliverability.
Homes England partners can access more than £700m SAHP cap if they ‘demonstrate good deliverability’ #UKhousingIn an interview with Inside Housing, Shahi Islam said Homes England has increased the cap to £700m for the new 10-year programme in response to “feedback and intel from partners” that said the previous programme’s £250m cap “was too low”.
The SAHP prospectus, published earlier this month, outlined that the new ‘strategic partnership plus’ route will have an “initial funding cap of up to £700m”.
“It’s an initial funding cap of £700m. So if they do deliver, and we’re hoping partners do, then we’re willing to give them more funding,” Mr Islam told Inside Housing.
He continued: “If there was one partner that had £700m by year five, if they had started on all their sites and delivered most of their completions, then they can come to us and ask for more funding, subject to budget being available, and we’d be willing to give them more funding if we had certainty and confidence that they could bring those schemes to site.”
He said the current and previous programmes had “quite a defined cap”, meaning partners could not receive any further funding unless they had “delivered everything”.
The SAHP from 2026, however, has “introduced more flexibility”, according to the affordable housing director.
Mr Islam also suggested that Homes England will make further changes with regards to for-profit access to the programme, ahead of bidding opening in February.
He said: “We are looking at, I guess, the playing field between for-profits and not-for-profits.
“I think what I’d say is that there does need to be a difference based on that. Not-for-profits are charged entities and they’re governed differently, whereas for-profits have shareholders.
“And I think we understand that there are some changes to our funding conditions, and at the moment, we’re reviewing those to understand how we can help manage access better.”
Mr Islam said that this is “work in train” and that changes would be made through the agency’s capital funding guidance.
“We’ve done lots of engagement with the for-profit sector, and hopefully we’ll see what we can do,” he added.
Sage Homes has previously said that for-profit housing providers are being held back by a “two-tier approach” to grant funding.
The SAHP will allocate a total of £27.2bn in funding to providers outside of London, and the new programme will also allow six metro mayors to "prioritise" indicative spending of £7bn.
It aims to ensure that three in every five homes delivered are for social rent, while also supporting the delivery of specialist and supported housing, and community-led and rural housing, as well as increasing council housebuilding.
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