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DCLG announces housing schemes shortlisted for £525m Builders Finance Fund


The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has announced a shortlist of 165 smaller housing schemes that could receive a share of £525 million in government loans to help unlock the delivery of up to 13,000 homes.

The Builders Finance Fund offers repayable loans to developers of housing schemes of between 15 and 250 homes that have slowed down or stalled due to difficulty in accessing development finance. The DCLG released a prospectus in April, inviting developers of schemes with local support and outline planning consent to express their interest in receiving financial assistance from the fund.

Among the shortlisted projects (49 KB MS Excel spreadsheet) were a scheme for 250 homes at Croydon Gateway Limited Partnership's Ruskin Square development in south London, 230 homes proposed by Countryside Properties at Fresh Wharf in Barking and Dagenham and Cathedral Group's 232-home Telegraph Works development in Greenwich.

Selected projects outside London included the River Street site in Manchester, at which Chelmer Developments proposes 250 homes, Countryside Sigma's proposals for 200 homes at the Queen Mary site in Liverpool, and Wapping Wharf in Bristol, where Wapping Wharf (Umberslade) proposes 245 homes across two residential blocks.

The shortlisted projects will undergo due diligence (6-page / 178 KB PDF), appraising their financial position, analysing the potential for recovery of funding and establishing funding, security and repayment arrangements.

Shortlisted applicants are required to provide due diligence information to the Homes and Communities Agency by 26 September. The DCLG said that it expects contracts to be complete by 28 February 2015 for schemes that successfully pass the due diligence stage. All funds must be drawn down by March 2017.

Communities secretary Eric Pickles said in a statement: "Thanks to the Builders Finance Fund, work will get started on over 160 sites across the country that had been brought to a standstill by the 2008 housing crash. This half-billion pound government investment will ensure we deliver up to nearly 13,000 new homes, and the same number of jobs, getting workers back on site and Britain building."

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