Big investment in housing deals set to deliver thousands of new homes

Housing Secretary James Brokenshire recently announced that nearly £250 million of housing deals facilitated by the government will deliver almost 25,000 more homes.

Some £157 million of this will go towards housing infrastructure in Cumbria and Devon under what is known as the Housing Infrastructure Fund. In Devon, £55 million will be spent on road improvements and other infrastructure in order to allow 2,500 homes to be built to the south west of Exeter.

The money will also pay for a new motorway link road between south Carlisle and the M6, unlocking up to 10,000 new homes at St Cuthbert's Garden Village.

Elsewhere, a new partnership has been struck between the government's Homes England department and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation to construct more than 10,000 new properties on seven Ministry of Defence (MoD) bases across the country.

The development of land released by the MoD will see the homes built on seven different sites, with the possibility for more surplus land to be used at some point in the future.

“As we work to make our military bases more modern and efficient, it's important that former MOD land is used in a way which serves local residents and the economy,” defence minister Tobias Elwood said.

“This new partnership underlines our commitment to helping housebuilding in this country and will provide good value for money to taxpayers.”

There will also be new homes in London, with over 1,500 homes at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park thanks to a £78 million loan from Homes England to help towards the funding of the development. The loan comes out of the government's £4.5 billion Home Building Fund, which offers development and infrastructure money to house-builders.

The homes will form two new neighbourhoods, with the first phase of the development set to be completed by 2021, while work at East Wick and Sweetwater – the second phase – has a planned completion date of 2028.

Construction has already started on phase one of the site, which will include 130 new affordable homes and 105 for private rental. Additionally, there will be over 33,000 square feet of business and creative space.

As part of Brokenshire's announcement, it was also revealed that a first deal has been agreed to deliver homes at speed under the Accelerated Construction Programme.

Employing modern methods of construction to build homes more quickly, up to 650 new homes will be built on three sites in Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

The scheme is receiving £10.6 million of funding from Homes England and is the first to benefit from the government's £450 million Accelerated Construction Programme. Work is set to begin in June on the first site in Hatfield town centre.

“We delivered 222,000 homes last year which is the highest number in a decade, but we must keep upping our game,” Brokenshire said.

“We are invoking the spirit of Britain's post-war push to build as we strive to hit our target of 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, for the first time since the days of Harold Macmillan.”

He added: “By investing in infrastructure, freeing up public sector land and offering targeted loans we are making the housing market work. These deals struck today will help us build almost 25,000 more homes – which is another symbolic step towards our homebuilding targets.”