£3 billion government Home Building Fund to increase the number of new homes being built in England

Last month we reported on the announcement of the construction of new garden villages and towns, proposed by the Government. Coupled with this is a £3 billion development fund available to all private sector organisations involved in delivering new homes.

The Home Building Fund is a flexible source of funding administered by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) on behalf of the government.

The Fund provides

• Development Finance Loan funding to meet the development costs of building homes for sale or rent.
• Infrastructure Finance Loan funding for site preparation and the infrastructure needed to enable housing to progress and to prepare land for development.
• Loans that can be tailored to your individual circumstances.

The HCA wants to encourage innovation, both in the kind of homes that are built and the way they are delivered. Financing is available to support these projects which could include community-led housing projects, serviced plots for custom and self-builders, off-site manufacturing, new entrants to the market, and groups of small firms working in consortia to deliver larger sites.

The Fund has a few eligibility criteria

• applicants will need to demonstrate that without this funding the scheme would not progress or progress as quickly, or at all
• developments must be in England
• the borrower must be a private sector entity that has majority control of the site
• development projects must build a minimum of five homes
• the borrower must be a UK registered corporate entity
• infrastructure projects must ultimately lead to the development of new housing
• the minimum investment the Fund will make is £250,000, except in the case of innovative housing solutions and serviced plots for custom builders.

At the point at which a loan offer is made, applicants are normally required to have a controlling interest in the land and a clear route to achieving planning consent.

Find out more

Visit the Government Home Building Fund page: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-building-fund

Also read: Small is beautiful: New FMB housing report launched