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Homes England to allow local authorities to become strategic partners
A scheme that sees Homes England provide long-term grant funding to strategic partners is now being extended to include local authorities, the chief executive of the government’s housing delivery body has said.
Speaking at real-estate company Savills’ annual housing seminar, Homes England’s chief executive Nick Wakley said it will be looking at how “to expand the number of strategic partners”, including “extending to local authority partners”.
He also said Homes England will be “calling for more housing associations” to join the scheme and “will also talk to private sector organisations”.
First launched in 2018, the strategic partnership initiative sees Homes England offer long-term grant funding to developers of affordable housing based on their entire development programme, rather than on a scheme-by-scheme basis.
To date, only housing associations have been able to become a part of the programme. Homes England has currently formed 23 strategic partnerships with 27 housing associations.
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In September, Homes England announced it would be accepting bids for new strategic partners as part of the next Affordable Homes Programme, set to run from 2021-2026.
It will select strategic partners through a competitive bidding process, which it said should begin by the start of next year.
Mr Walkley said Homes England wants its strategic partners to work with the agency “to deliver on wider policy ambitions”.
“If I had a disappointment about strategic partners to date, it’s that we’ve made tremendous strides on delivery, but we’ve not done enough together,” he added.
Mr Walkley also used his speech to tell the sector that it “must get the message that finding pathways and routes for a greater proportion of the population to have an ownership stake in their homes is a critical priority for this government”.
He added: “That feels to me to be a major challenge going forward. How do we collectively demonstrate the strength of the sector in delivering hundreds of thousands of homeowners a year?”
The Homes England chief executive urged social landlords to promote “the incredibly positive story about pathways from social and affordable rent through into home ownership”.
