Social housing consortium to plough £44.2m into affordable homes

A NORTH West social housing consortium has announced it will invest a further £44.2m to build 429 more homes in the 2015/18 Affordable Homes Programme.

JV North will construct the properties before April 2018 in addition to the 1,745 already planned after making successful continuous market engagement bids.

The 25% increase comes after the 10-member group received an additional £13.4m from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

Members – made up of landlords in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Preston – will supplement this with £30.8m of investment.

It means that overall, JV North will now build 2,174 homes in the 2015/18 programme and has received grant of £48.2m from the HCA.

In total, members will invest £192.7m and its programme value is £240.9m.

Latest figures reveal JV North has completed 220 new homes so far in the 2015/18 Affordable Homes Programme.

The consortium’s members have also started on site building a further 671 properties.

Completing the building of 220 new homes was possible thanks to members investing £16.3m and drawing down a £4m grant from the HCA.

JV North chairman Nigel Wilson, who is also chief executive of Wythenshawe Community Housing Group, said: “The speed at which members are delivering homes in the 2015/18 Affordable Homes Programme is excellent.

“Even better news is that our ability to deliver and commitment to building has been recognised by the HCA and we’ve received additional grant of £13.4 million to build 429 more homes – a really significant increase.

“It stems from good management and delivery that spans many years.

“Members completed their allocations ahead of schedule in the 2011/15 programme and this enabled them to drawdown funding early in this round which is why 220 homes have been completed already.

“It means 891 homes are either completed or work has already started and this will go some way towards helping us deliver much-needed homes in our communities.”