Future Proof: Accelerating Delivery of High Quality Development Across the LEP

By the end of 2019 the project will seek to create a radically different financial product (FP) used to accelerate the delivery of housing developments which are future proofed for 2050. It will help overcome the following barriers to housing delivery highlighted by the Letwin Review, by taking a long term approach to development finance:

The Problem

• Lack of access to finance and opportunities for SME developers who could help increase supply.
• The traditional control of housing supply by major house builders with slow build out rates limited by the absorption rate of the way the mainstream housing market is financed.
• Suppressed demand for differentiated types and tenures which could increase build out rates.
• Poor quality or outmoded construction processes which do not stand the test of time or adopt innovative methods such as off-site.
• Lack of long term approaches to managing community assets.
• Technical/physical and financial barriers to new infrastructure e.g. utilities.

The Solution

The FP will combine public and private investment to underpin construction (developer) and purchase (homeowner/resident) functions of developments, using very long-term investment funds to:

• Enable marginal sites which are mostly but not exclusively in public ownership to come forward with differentiated housing types and tenures.
• Exploit newly funded infrastructure to generate income streams to reinvest into the communities.
• Solely uses off-site/modern construction methods to drive speed, quality and local economic value.
• Facilitate the parcelling of larger sites and the use of SME developers.
• Link infrastructure, homeownership finance, site ownership and management in creative ways to drive down operational running costs for residents and create community benefit.

How will the funding be used

The SSF funding will support a research, development and financial planning exercise that will be used to accelerate housing delivery and which can be used by SELEP and all 35 SELEP Local authorities.

Sector Support Fund

The Sector Support Fund (SSF) was established to support one-off, discrete pieces of work of a pan-LEP nature with a sector focus that bring demonstrable benefit and which have support across the LEP area.

The SSF used Growing Places Fund (GPF) Revenue grant to fund a programme of works which supported the sector focussed activities being undertaken on a pan-LEP basis and which were predominantly led by the SELEP working groups.