Homes England has unveiled a new five-year strategic plan that its chief executive hopes will “legitimise and expand” the various strands of its offering.
The government’s housing and regeneration agency has described the initiative as “a call-to-arms” and an offer to the housing and regeneration sector. It commits Homes England to working in a more “place-based” manner, tailoring powers and funding packages to specific challenges in different parts of the country.
“We are here to support the wider built environment with, over the next five years, £16bn, 9,000 hectares of land, CPO statutory powers, hundreds and hundreds of people to facilitate between private sector and public sector engagement and partnership, and so forth,” chief executive Peter Denton told EG in an interview ahead of the plan’s launch. “We are there to bring all of that to bear, to help the country, to help people.”
Five objectives
The new plan is based around five objectives: supporting the creation of “vibrant and successful” places that people can be proud of; facilitating the creation of the homes people need; building a housing and regeneration sector that “works for everyone”, including by driving diversification; promoting the creation of high-quality homes in well-designed places that reflect community priorities; and enabling sustainable homes and places.
Denton said the plan is focused on legitimisation of the agency’s roles but also expansion in the way that it pulls together what would have been seen as separate priorities in different periods of its history.
“Legitimisation in that the agency, over the 40 or 50 years it has existed in one form or another, has had moments where it was predominantly focused on housing quantity, and other moments like English Partnerships 20 years ago, where it was predominantly focused on regeneration,” he explained.
“[Now] it’s both. It’s there to support the levelling-up ambition and the social justice of equalising communities and giving equal opportunity to communities all across the country. It’s more than just housing. But it’s expanding because it’s saying ‘and’ – we are not giving up on housing.”
Denton wants Homes England to be the “engine room” for regeneration schemes – providing, say, a fifth of the capital as impetus at the start of a project, which then encourages the private sector to come in with the remainder. “I think that is really exciting. That approach is Canary Wharf, 1979. That is how Canary Wharf got kicked off.”
He continued: “Control the land. Masterplan it, create a vision. Put the infrastructure in. Make sure the place is doing it with the support of Homes England. It’s a local democracy, local place. It’s their vision, it’s their priorities. Those four ingredients, shake them together and, if you get it right, then the private sector will follow and run with it.”
Government priority
Homes England chair Peter Freeman said: “As an agency, we firmly believe that affordable, quality homes in well-designed places are key to improving people’s lives. And our updated strategic plan has been designed to enable us to deliver against that.
“Over the next five years, we will continue to work with housebuilders of all shapes and sizes to boost housing supply. But we will also focus on the places those homes sit in, working ever more closely with local leaders and other partners to build communities as well as housing, be it through housing-led, mixed-use regeneration or new settlements.
Rachel Maclean, minister for housing, said: “Creating high-quality and sustainable homes that people can be proud of is an absolute priority for this government. We continue to work with partners and developers to facilitate a brownfield-first approach to meet local housing needs for local people.”
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