Homes England’s National Housing Bank is officially opening for business, backed by a new Investment Prospectus that sets out the agency’s full range of funding and support.
The National Housing Bank is a new government public finance institution with what the government calls “the authority and ambition to accelerate the delivery of new homes and communities, whilst also enabling the regeneration of towns and cities across England.”
Backed by the UK government, the National Housing Bank will work with house builders, developers, investors and registered providers to deploy up to £16 billion of debt, equity and guarantees.
The bank will also work with Mayors through Homes England’s new regional model to strengthen collaborative working with partners and leaders.
A subsidiary of Homes England, the bank will support the delivery of more than 500,000 homes and a raft of major regeneration and mixed-use schemes, alongside unlocking more than £53 billion of private investment over the next ten years.
The National Housing Bank’s launch is supported by Homes England’s new Investment Prospectus, the Agency’s single, authoritative statement of how it invests to deliver homes and regeneration.
The Investment Prospectus brings together for the first time Homes England’s full range of capital products, land, powers and technical expertise in one public document – making it easier for local leaders and partner organisations to understand the role the Agency and the National Housing Bank can play in delivering their pipeline of housing and mixed-use schemes.
Headquartered in Leeds, the National Housing Bank says it will move quickly to back shovel ready schemes.
It launches with the announcement that Homes England has contracted a new £100m partnership with Mansion House Compact signatory and Sterling 20 member, Aviva.
Its lifetime objective is to build up to 3,300 well designed and sustainable homes for rent in underinvested areas of cities, including an initial 300 in Liverpool and Manchester.
The launch of the National Housing Bank and Investment Prospectus were marked at a Homes England event attended by senior sector stakeholders in London today (Tuesday 31 March).
Housing Secretary Steve Reed says: “Launching England’s first ever National Housing Bank underpins a new way of doing things as we accelerate housebuilding at scale and tackle the housing crisis head on.
“Now open for business, the Bank will rake in billions of pounds of essential private investment to get spades in the ground for half a million new homes.
“This is just one of the many levers we’re pulling to make sure we reach our 1.5 million target this Parliament.”
