CIH CONFERENCE Liverpool’s housing challenge is unique among the UK’s cities. Rather than being short of housing, it has a lot of stock that is in need of refurbishment. Three-quarters of buildings are in the two cheapest council tax bands, while only 47% of the city is owner occupied, compared with 70% in the surrounding areas.
In this context, Liverpool City Council has taken an active role in housing development to regenerate existing stock, provide new social housing but also to encourage more high quality “executive housing” in the city centre.
“Our tenure mix is different from the others, it presents us with other problems,” said Frank Hont, cabinet member for housing at Liverpool City Council. “We have an urgent need as city to change the tenure mix, we need more quality housing for sale, and more quality social housing,”
The result was the Liverpool Housing Partnership comprising the council, Redrow Homes, Wilmott Partnership Homes and social housing provider Liverpool Mutual Housing.
Essentially, the council provides a number of sites across the city, which the partnership can then take a view on how to deliver, depending on what the sites and the market dictates is best to deliver.
Hont said the council sells the land for housing to the partnership, with ring-fenced payments that then go to subsidise social housing.
Wilmott Partnership Homes put together the platform for the partnership. Richard Sterling said it became obvious that a larger team would be able to mitigate the risks of development and maintain delivery rates.
Across the initial 17 sites the council put in, the intention is to develop 1,500 homes and bring a further 1,000 back into use.
“This partnership is trying to achieve a step change in the way housing is delivered in Liverpool,” said Sterling.
Redrow acts as the private developer in the partnership, and essentially the money. It buys some sites from the council, with that money used to fund delivery of others.
Redrow development director Faye Whiteoak said that despite the city’s challenges, there is a huge shortage of quality four-bedroom detached homes in the city, making it an attractive location to develop.
“The sales we have seen so far on the five sites under way… customers are queuing around the block,” she said.
However, she said the partnership makes it possible to bring forward difficult regeneration sites that have a minimal or even negative land value, and the flexibility of the delivery between the partners means sites can be brought forward depending on which tenures and type of housing work best.
Sterling said the model is based on a number of tried and tested principles:
- A five-year business plan which is reviewed each year
- Homes-for-sale receipts used to subsidise social homes
- A mixed platform which can leverage other tenures
- The ability to bring forward additional private sites
- A strong governance regime.
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