Government pledges £150m more to Get Britain Building scheme

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has also published a shortlist of 224 schemes that could receive funding under the Get Britain Building programme, which is aimed at unlocking stalled development sites across the country.

The HCA received 170 expressions of interest with bids for nearly 400 schemes and prioritised sites by their value for money, deliverability and fit with local priorities, it said. The shortlisted schemes would now be invited to enter a due diligence process before contracts are signed. 

The shortlist builds on the first 18 sites announced under a special commissioning phase in February, which, subject to due diligence and contracting, will receive an allocation of up to £46m to deliver up to 1,300 new homes on private and public sector sites.

The south and south west has the biggest potential to benefit under the commissioned schemes, with £19 million of investment to unlock 539 stalled developments, whilst the north east is due to receive £1.6m to unlock 41 stalled developments.

The programme is planned to support a range of small to large housebuilders and the shortlisted schemes range from 25 new homes to 300. The schemes on the shortlist are a mix of housing and flats, and also contain around 2,000 new affordable homes, the HCA said.

The fund was first announced in the Government’s Housing Strategy, which was published in November and which is aimed at enabling work on stalled sites with planning permission to assist in restarting the building of up to 15,500 new homes by December 2014.

It is hoped the fund would help developers who cannot access development finance and allow them to share risk where the viability is marginal. All funding has been made available on the basis that it is recoverable, according to the Government.

The fund gives developers three options: a loan available on commercial rates that must be repaid when units are sold; equity investment where the HCA would invest alongside the developers' own equity investment and receipts would be shared proportionately when any loans have been paid off, called Equity A; and an equity investment which would recover investment through a combination of Equity A and pre-arranged thresholds, called Equity B.

"This additional funding is testament to the excellent response from the sector, and we will now test each of these schemes thoroughly to ensure it will generate the much-needed homes and jobs quickly, meet local priorities and represent a value for money investment for the taxpayer," said Pat Ritchie, chief executive of the HCA.