£72m boost for affordable housing in Nottingham

Longhurst Group and Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) will receive £71.7m in extra Government funding to build more affordable homes after being selected by Homes England as strategic partners.

The two organisations are among a list of 11 organisations that form the latest wave of partners, who agree to expand their development programmes by a specified number of homes in return for additional Government funding.

Following the announcement, Longhurst Group – which has regional offices in Nottingham – NCHA and nine other housing associations will be given a total of £497m to build more than 11,500 new affordable homes across the UK.

Ian Jackson, Longhurst group’s executive director, portfolio investment, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to have been selected, along with our partners at NCHA, as one of Homes England’s strategic partners.

“This will enable us to significantly increase our development programme, allowing us to provide many more much-needed affordable homes, across a wide geography and through different tenure types.

“We’re very excited to be playing our part in responding to the Government’s challenge to the housing sector to deliver 300,000 new homes a year and look forward to working with our partners to do so.

“This heralds a new relationship with Homes England and the Government and one that will equip us with the tools to do even more to help fix the UK housing crisis.”

Together, Longhurst Group and the NCHA own Pitch; which was formed in 2005 to provide development services to other Housing Associations and Local Authorities to enable the delivery of more affordable homes for families and people in housing need.

Allan Fisher, director of development and assets for NCHA added: “We’re delighted to have been selected as one Homes England’s Strategic Partners enabling us to deliver more affordable homes to people that need them. There’s a huge shortage of social housing in and around the areas which we work, so we’re looking forward to working with our partners to deliver these much needed homes.”