Network Rail’s joint venture seeks social landlord for affordable housing portfolio

Richard Thomas, director of Bloc Group, told Inside Housing that build-to-rent developers generally want schemes that have more than 150 homes, “so some of the smaller sites we are bringing forward will be for sale and for affordable housing”.

“The scale [of the sites] is generally going for 50 units upwards, up to the 150 mark.”

He continued: “It’s quite hard to find a partner that will do the whole country, so we’re trying to break it down into areas that we can target initially.”

“If it works,” he added, deals with registered social landlords could be announced this year.

Blocwork was set up 10 years ago with the goal of redeveloping redundant sites in Network Rail’s property portfolio. Its first development, a build-to-rent scheme called Barnum in Nottingham, was completed in December 2023, and it has six other schemes in planning.

On 9 May, planners will vote on Blocwork’s scheme near Northampton train station, which includes nearly 200 new homes, between 20% and 30% of which will be affordable.

A build-to-rent partnership with Lloyds-backed provider Citra Living was announced earlier this year. The joint venture is also exploring student housing, offices, hotels and sustainable freight schemes. 

“We’re in pretty much every sector,” Mr Thomas said.

Building on sites near train stations brings its own challenges, he said. “We need to make sure we’re not interrupting the [rail] network in any way… It really is helpful for us to do it together, whereas an arm’s-length developer may struggle to get the approvals as quickly as we do.”

“Historically, people didn’t want to live next to railways, but now that view has massively changed,” Mr Thomas said. 

“People want to be able to access the rail network and get around the country really easily, and also the city they live in.”

Transport for London (TfL) has also made inroads into housing development. Its own building company, Places for London, was set up in 2022 to build 20,000 homes on TfL-owned land over the next decade, half of which will be affordable.