Kier Living launches £1bn housing delivery fund with ambitions to help public sector build 10,000 new homes across the UK.
The ‘New Communities Partnership’ initiative was launched in partnership with The Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund (managed by the UK-based investment manager Cheyne Capital) and The Housing Growth Partnership (a joint venture between the HCA and Lloyds Banking Group).
It is a unique public-private alliance that provides local authorities and housing associations with an innovative delivery model for building new homes on their own land. It provides an option to choose between sale and/or rental developments and offers significant scope for affordable development.
At the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham in October Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said there would be a three-pronged strategy to step up house-building in the UK.
The £3bn Home Builders Fund will help to build more than 225,000 new homes, whilst creating thousands of jobs and incentivise developers to build the infrastructure needed to support new housing. A further £2bn initiative, Accelerated Construction on Public Land, will take government owned land and partner with contractors and investors to speed up housebuilding and support new models to deliver more affordable homes. A third commitment was announced to encourage urban regeneration through building on brownfield land.
John Anderson, executive director of Kier Living said: “We very much welcome this Government commitment to housing delivery and the demonstration that it is listening to industry concerns. Industry leaders have been calling for more innovative ways to deliver the number of houses that the country needs. Innovation that can bring more land forward and speed up access to sites to build on.
“We believe that our New Community Partnership has a big role to play in helping to unlock public land. It will bring scale and momentum to Kier’s tried-and-tested mixed-tenure housing delivery model, for public sector clients across the UK who hold land but don’t have the capacity to develop new housing.”
The partnership can help public sector organisations to determine the appropriate mix of tenure for their site, including rental homes and homes for sale, in a model designed to meet the needs of their specific communities, without the need for grant funding. Homes available for rent will include discounted and market-rent solutions to address housing challenges faced by key workers, the disabled and the elderly, while homes to be built for sale will include discounted sale units to help first time buyers get on the housing ladder.
It will also provide public sector clients with potential scope to derive a revenue income from their land, whilst developing in a socially responsible way that will offer local apprenticeships, wider employment and sustainable, economic benefits for communities.
