• Home
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • LATIF
  • Conferences
  • Dashboard
  • Edit My Profile
  • Log In
  • Logout
  • Register
  • Edit this post

Room 151

  • 151 BRIEF

    What's New?

  • Inflation ‘biggest concern for LGPS professionals’

    May 20, 2022

  • LGA calls for government support as regulators face staffing issues

    May 19, 2022

  • WMCA signs £4bn investment agreement with L&G

    May 18, 2022

  • Bill will give UK Infrastructure Bank power to lend directly to councils

    May 18, 2022

  • £400bn pension group collaborates on climate transition initiative

    May 17, 2022

  • CIPFA rejects proposal for vote on publication of fraud hub report

    May 17, 2022

  • Treasury
  • Technical
  • Funding
  • Resources
  • LGPS
  • Development
  • 151 News
  • Blogs
    • David Green
    • Agent 151
    • Dan Bates
    • Richard Harbord
    • Stephen Sheen
    • James Bevan
    • Steve Bishop
    • Cllr John Clancy
    • David Crum
    • Graham Liddell
    • Ian O’Donnell
    • Jackie Shute
  • Interviews
  • Briefs

Homes England actively seeking partnerships with councils

0
  • by Editor
  • in 151 News · Development
  • — 8 Nov, 2018

Gareth Blacker, Rita Akushie and Jamie Ratcliff

The government’s housing delivery agency is looking to use £100m of funding in new partnerships with local authorities to deliver new housing schemes.

Earlier this year, Homes England doubled the amount of cash dedicated to its English Cities Fund, a development company set up by Homes England, Legal & General and Muse Developments, to £200m.

Speaking at last week’s Housing Finance Summit organised by Room151 in partnership with publication Social Housing, Homes England’s general manager of infrastructure and complex projects, Gareth Blacker, said he wanted to talk to councils about how to spend the money.

He said: “We have doubled the equity going into that vehicle and increased its ability to leverage finance.

“We are looking for projects – difficult and challenging schemes.

“We think we have got ways of working with authorities that might allow joint ventures to be created that might accelerate procurement. We are very open to having discussions with anyone with difficult sites that you might want to take forward in partnership.”

Blacker said that the fund is already working with councils in Newham, Salford and Plymouth to bring forward development.

Speaking shortly after the launch of the quango’s five-year strategic plan to 2023, he said that the agency is now moving from a “programme-based” to a “mission-based” organisation.

“That takes us from a programme-based way of working to one based on place and priority areas,” he said.

“We finally got buy-in from the secretary of state and the housing minister to do that. That will allow us to use all the tools we have available to us in those priority areas.”

He added that the agency was in talks with HM Treasury about next year’s spending review to ensure certainty of funding for large regeneration projects that last longer than the five-year time frame covered by the review.

He said: “You might be able to do the first bits of infrastructure in a five-year window but you have to have a plan that takes you way beyond those five years to allow certainty of delivery over a longer period.”

Also speaking during the session, Jamie Ratcliff, assistant director of housing at the Greater London Authority, said councils need to be realistic about how much housing would result from the lifting of the housing revenue account borrowing cap.

He said: “Once we start getting into the scale of what can be delivered then it is quite low levels.

“That is partly because the surpluses being generated in HRAs aren’t massive at the moment and if you are going to deliver subsidised housing you are not going to be able to borrow commercially to do that even with free land within the local authority.

“Housing associations have recognised for some time they need subsidy from other sources, whether cross-subsidy from commercial activity or higher amounts of grant.”

Ratcliff warned that land supply was another potential constraint on the ability of urban local authorities to step up housing supply, since the “easy pickings of de-industrialisation” were now in short supply. 

“We are going to have much more complex sites with much more broader ranges of ownership,” he said. 

He called for reform of the rules surrounding land assembly to provide incentive for landowners to collaborate on regeneration schemes.

Get the Room151 Newsletter

Share

You may also like...

  • Ten of the most innovative council-run housing projects 25th Jan, 2022
  • Cornwall’s housing crisis: planning and tax reforms ‘urgently required’ 12th Apr, 2022
  • What role will climate change have on the pricing of government bonds? 24th Feb, 2021
  • Waste authority to issue green bond through UKMBA 2nd Feb, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • Register to become a Room151 user

  • Latest tweets

    Room151 15 hours ago

    2022 LGPS valuations: difficult discussions in uncertain times: Michelle Doman looks at the impact of inflationary pressures, the war in Ukraine, climate risk and Covid-19 on employer contributions. At the start of 2022, for Local Government Pension… dlvr.it/SQlvy9 pic.twitter.com/Dd0lrHjWNb

    Room151 18 hours ago

    Investing today: nowhere to hide: Partner Content: Alex Stanley from Ardea Investment Management suggests that investors have few places to hide amid a synchronised sell-off in both bonds and equities. However, there are catalysts that[...] dlvr.it/SQlNVC pic.twitter.com/KkGGnduzPL

    Room151 2 days ago

    Treasury to restrict PWLB loans to councils at risk of non-repayment: The Treasury has released new guidance that restricts local authorities’ access to Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) advances if there is a “more than negligible risk” of a council’s… dlvr.it/SQhLTV pic.twitter.com/vBsS7xMJdb

    Room151 2 days ago

    Mixed reaction to proposed government intervention powers: There has been a mixed reaction to the government’s legislative plans to strengthen its intervention powers over local authority finances. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill has proposed… dlvr.it/SQhLMB pic.twitter.com/50foWxpPGs

    Room151 2 days ago

    Post-Brexit struggles for national and local government regulators. @LGAcomms @NAOorguk Click the link below to read 🔻🔻 room151.co.uk/brief/lga-call… #Brexit #government pic.twitter.com/s3c8ySGy5G

    Room151 2 days ago

    CIPFA: a question of transparency: Roman Haluszczak’s campaign for publication of the independent report into the collapse of CIPFA’s London Counter Fraud Hub has been rejected again by the institute. He is now calling for[...] dlvr.it/SQgC5V pic.twitter.com/08fWsHFF4g

    Room151 3 days ago

    Back to the future for the PWLB: The Public Works Loan Board is tightening its lending criteria to ensure that loans will be repaid by local government borrowers. But, asks Peter Findlay, shouldn’t they have been doing[...] dlvr.it/SQcmmm pic.twitter.com/bVv4fe0Xlv

    Room151 3 days ago

    Great piece from Peter Findlay on the PWLB’s tightening of its lending criteria. He raises some pointed questions for the Treasury and explains why the ‘casino council’ characterisation was simplistic and inaccurate. #PWLB #localgov room151.co.uk/treasury/back-…

    Room151 3 days ago

    The Queen's speech highlighted the need for accelerating UK infrastructure investment into levelling up projects and cutting emissions. @UKInfraBank #QueensSpeech #ClimateAction #emissions Click the link below to read 🔻🔻 room151.co.uk/brief/bill-wil… pic.twitter.com/hFmF2veVIa

    Room151 3 days ago

    Huge funding heading to the @WestMids_CA from @landg. @andy4wm #LevellingUp #netzero #regeneration Click the link below to read 🔻🔻 room151.co.uk/brief/wmca-sig… pic.twitter.com/ajhZhia6mx

    Room151 3 days ago

    LGPS governance, Cagney and Lacey style: What regulatory response can be expected following the publication of the Good Governance project’s Phase 3 report and the closure of the Single Code of Practice consultation? Susan Black offers[...] dlvr.it/SQbfXf pic.twitter.com/xwqHOEu2AP

    Room151 4 days ago

    More evidence of the importance of emerging markets in the journey to net-zero. @BordertoCoast @BrunelPP @northernlgps @EAPensionFund @WYPF_LGPS Click the link below to read 🔻🔻 #LGPS #NetZero #NetZeroCarbon #EmergingMarkets room151.co.uk/brief/400bn-pe… pic.twitter.com/qCm0EGxzLn

  • Categories

    • 151 News
    • Agent 151
    • Audit
    • Blogs
    • Business rates
    • Chris Buss
    • Cllr John Clancy
    • Council tax
    • Dan Bates
    • David Crum
    • David Green
    • Development
    • Education
    • Forum
    • Funding
    • Governance
    • Graham Liddell
    • Housing
    • Ian O'Donnell
    • Infrastructure
    • Interviews
    • Jackie Shute
    • James Bevan
    • Jobs
    • Levelling up
    • LGPS
    • Mark Finnegan
    • Net Zero
    • Private markets
    • Recent Posts
    • Regulation
    • Resources
    • Responsible investing
    • Richard Harbord
    • Risk management
    • Social care
    • Stephen Fitzgerald
    • Stephen Sheen
    • Steve Bishop
    • Technical
    • Transport
    • Treasury
    • Uncategorized
    • William Bourne
  • Archives

    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
    • 2011
  • Previous story LGPS pooling paves way for housing investments
  • Next story Northants exits LOBOs as October PWLB borrowing hits £850m

© Copyright 2022 Room 151. Typegrid Theme by WPBandit.

0 shares