Get Britain Building fund only available for developments of 25 or more homes

The HCA has published draft heads of terms and a sheet of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to provide more detail on the Get Britain Building fund, ahead of the 30 January closing date for bids.

The £420 million fund was announced in the recent housing strategy in November and is intended to help improve developers' cashflow and to enable stalled sites with planning permission to be restarted, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) said. It is hoped that this will support construction activity and provide new homes.

The Get Britain Building fund is aimed at helping developers to access development finance to help bring forward marginal development sites by sharing the risk.  Although not limited to smaller companies, the HCA has tried to make the application process easy for all applicants.

The programme is open to all private sector organisations which control land and can develop at least 25 homes on a stalled site by December 2014.

Applications will also be accepted for funding requests for a single phase of a larger scheme that will not be completed by December 2014, the HCA's FAQs said. The HCA would then consider taking equity in the wider project.

The HCA also published its draft standard heads of terms yesterday and although they are subject to change before entering into an agreement, they provide an indication of the terms upon which the fund would be administered.