Two large social housing providers, Stonewater and Guinness, have once again been announced as one of the largest long-term Strategic Partners with Homes England.
The Government’s housing delivery agency is to provide further funding of c £250m for the two organisations to build 4,180 high-quality, affordable homes by 2029, in addition to the £224m awarded to the strategic partnership in 2018 to build 4,500 homes by 2025.
This assurance today of further long-term funding will enable Stonewater and Guinness to continue entering longer-term commitments to buy additional land and target areas of greatest housing need.
A perfect example of this is Stonewater’s new homes development at Cooper Close in Smallfield, Surrey that is bringing a total of 51 affordable homes to the area. The project comprises a mix of one- to four-bedroom homes and showcases the type of much-needed affordable housing scheme that has been made possible by the certainty of grant funding from Homes England.
Homes England funding has previously contributed to Guinness’s 928-home development, Points Cross, in Leeds. This scheme forms part of a major regeneration programme of the South Bank area of Leeds. As well as much-needed high-quality, affordable housing, the Guinness development is providing opportunities for the local community through the creation of apprenticeships and new jobs, work experience placements, study visits for neighbouring schools, and initiatives to support the homeless in the city.
In this latest round of funding awarded by Homes England, Stonewater and Guinness will remain one of the largest strategic partnership to deliver more of the homes needed to address the housing crisis affecting people and communities across the country.
This round sees £5.2bn made available to 35 housing associations, local authorities and private providers across England through strategic partnerships with Homes England.
Nicholas Harris, Chief Executive of Stonewater, said: “We are proud to have worked with Homes England and Guinness as a strategic partner over the past three years to ensure thousands of new affordable homes are delivered across the country. The additional support for the partnership that the government announced today will secure Stonewater’s ambitious development programme in the coming years and continue to support our vision of everyone having a place to call home.”
Catriona Simons, Chief Executive of Guinness, commented: “We are delighted that Homes England has confirmed the extension of the Stonewater Guinness Strategic Partnership with an allocation of funding for our combined 4,180 new homes. We welcome the government’s continued commitment to work with housing associations to meet housing need across the country and across a range of tenures. With a longer horizon to 2029 we can keep investing for the future and create more places that people are proud to call home.”
Header image shows Stonewater’s Cooper Close development in Surrey during construction.
