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Vistry eyes strategic partnership with Homes England
House builder Vistry Group has said it is interested in forming a strategic partnership with Homes England through its partnerships arm, following an announcement that developers will be allowed to access the government grant scheme.
Stephen Teagle, chief executive of Vistry Partnerships, told Inside Housing: “We are looking at a strategic partnership with Homes England, but that would only be to create additionality and supplement our involvement with other housing associations.”
In February, Homes England opened bidding for its strategic partnership scheme, under which partners are given long-term grant agreements to help fund their development pipelines.
Unlike in previous iterations where only non-profit housing associations could bid to the scheme, Homes England is now inviting applications from developers, local authorities and for-profit housing associations.
Mr Teagle’s comments come as Vistry Group, which was formed last year as part of a merger between Bovis and Galliford Try’s housing business, published its results for 2020.
The results show that Vistry Partnerships, an arm of the business that partners with councils and housing associations, built 4,302 homes in 2020 – a 15% increase on the number of homes it delivered in 2019.
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That number includes 1,479 homes that were handed over and 2,823 homes that have been built as part of still in-progress schemes.
Mr Teagle said Vistry Partnerships is targeting further growth in 2021 in order to lift it towards a target of 6,000 homes in 2022. He said the firm has already sold 64% of the homes it plans for this year.
Vistry Partnerships has recently entered into development agreements with a number of social landlords, including Cornwall Council and Riverside.
As part of today’s results, Vistry Group also announced it is setting aside £20.9m to help pay for building safety remediation work.
The group said its housebuilding business has identified 10 projects on which it acted as a developer where remediation may be required.
On the partnerships business, Mr Teagle said: “We’re working with our housing association partners, and we have done since the immediate aftermath of Grenfell, on identifying the construction of those buildings and identifying any remediation that may be required on those buildings as well.
“And in some cases we’ve undertaken remediation and completed the work and in other cases we are underway with it at the moment.”
It follows an announcement from Taylor Wimpey this week that the house builder has put aside £125m to fund fire safety work.
Mr Teagle said he is supportive of the government’s plan to introduce a levy on developers in order to help fund cladding remediation work.
He added: “No part of the sector can take any pride in the issues that have emerged post-Grenfell about building safety and so, to me, the whole industry has a culpability.”
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