£1 billion fund created to help build thousands more homes

A new fund is being created to help speed up the delivery of thousands of new homes across England.

Housing Secretary James Brokenshire says the government is entering into a partnership with Barclays Bank to provide £1 billion of loan finance to help support small and medium sized developers.

Support, ranging between £5 million to £100 million, will be made available to developers who can demonstrate the necessary experience and commitment to building new homes, while boasting a track record of delivering challenging projects on time and to target.

The scheme will be overseen by the Government’s delivery agency, Homes England. The funding will put greater emphasis on opening up the housing market, which sees almost two-thirds of new homes built by just ten companies at present.

The Housing Delivery Fund will support the delivery of new homes, including social housing, retirement living and apartments for rent, while also encouraging greater innovation on how housing is delivered such as brownfield land and urban regeneration projects.

Housing Secretary Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP, said: “This new fund – partnering Homes England with Barclays – is a further important step by giving smaller builders access to the finance they need to get housing developments off the ground.”

The Government says it aims be building 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, which follows 217,000 homes built last year.

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