Mayor announces new partnership to help drive more social and affordable housing

Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, today (Friday Oct 18) announced a formal partnership with the region’s leading housing associations which will see them work together to help tackle the housing crisis. 

The collaboration between the associations and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) will identify new opportunities and sites for the construction of homes that are genuinely affordable for local people.  

The partnership will not only work together to deliver more affordable homes but also to support the WMCA’s wider housing policies including, where possible, the use of modern methods of construction, including modular homes.

These homes are built in factory-controlled conditions before being assembled on site and could see energy efficient, low carbon homes built at a faster pace and with reduced costs.

The Homes for the West Midlands Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) will see five housing associations - Bromford, Citizen Housing, GreenSquareAccord, Midland Heart, and whg work with the WMCA on ways to accelerate delivery of the region’s affordable housing ambitions. The day-to-day business of the LLP will be managed by Integer Advisory Ltd. 

The Mayor has made housing, and in particular the construction of thousands more social and affordable homes, one of his four key priorities along with jobs, economic growth and better transport. 

The partnership comes as the number of people on the region’s housing waiting list tops 64,000 with more than 6,500 households, including nearly 13,000 children, living in temporary accommodation.  

Announcing the partnership at LoCal Homes, an award-winning offsite housing manufacturing facility in Walsall, the Mayor said: “When I speak to residents, they tell me how hard it is to keep up with house prices, private rents, and mortgage rates, all of which have risen at unprecedented levels.

“One reason for this is that we aren’t building enough homes, particularly social housing. This has left too many people living in poor conditions.

“That’s why I’m committed to changing how we build homes in our region. I’ve set a target of 20,000 new social homes over the next decade to help tackle the housing crisis, while also training local people to get jobs building those homes.

“This is a shared goal, and I’m confident that by working together, we can make a real difference to the lives of thousands of people in our communities.” 

 

The agreement will not only see the parties collaborate to identify parcels of land suitable for affordable housing but will also provide a mechanism to assess wider WMCA policy objectives.  

This includes exploring the use of cutting-edge, Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) capable of producing homes that are low carbon and highly energy efficient - helping to keep people’s fuel bills down.

Factory-built modular homes, like the ones produced by LoCal, can be delivered and assembled on site in as little as four days for a pair of semi-detached houses - around 40% quicker than traditional bricks and mortar construction.

The partnership’s first development, on a derelict industrial site in the Black Country, will be announced in the coming weeks. Preparation work, in close collaboration with the local council, is already underway for a 100% affordable housing scheme on the site. 

It is intended to be the first of many schemes to be developed by the partnership in conjunction with local authorities and the wider public sector.  

Speaking on behalf of the LLP, Joe Reeves, executive director of finance at Midland Heart, said “With affordable housing emerging as a key aspect of devolution in the West Midlands, this is the perfect time to demonstrate true collaboration between a partnership of housing associations with heritage in the region and the WMCA. 

“This new Homes for the West Midlands partnership will complement the annual 3,500 homes built by these Housing Associations in the region by identifying land among strategic economic corridors to deliver homes that meet the policy objectives of the WMCA, particularly in respect of affordability, brownfield remediation, modern methods of construction and energy efficiency.” 

Ruth Cooke, chief executive of GreenSquareAccord added: “We are delighted to be part of the Homes for the West Midlands Limited Liability Partnership.

“It’s fantastic to see the Mayor make the construction of thousands more social and affordable homes one of his four key priorities.

“By exploring the use of modern methods of construction (MMC) throughout the partnership we will be able to construct much needed homes in a quality-controlled factory environment, accelerating the overall speed of construction, resulting in quicker handovers and earlier occupancy.

“These homes will also capture more carbon than traditional construction methods and will be much more thermally efficient, resulting in lower fuel bills for customers.

“We look forward to working with the other housing associations and the WMCA to provide much needed energy-efficient homes to help tackle the housing crisis.”

The WMCA already works closely with a wide range of housing associations – in particular the West Midlands Housing Association Partnership (WMHAP), a consortium of 17 regional housing associations.  

The new partnership will build on that relationship - setting out new ways of working that harness the combined expertise, resources and capacity of each organisation as well as the WMCA’s own expertise and assets so social and affordable homes can be built more quickly, efficiently and in the right places.  

Cllr Peter Hughes, chair of WMCA Investment Board, said: “This partnership will help drive the development of new affordable housing on brownfield sites. It will also support key WMCA policy objectives including net zero and modern methods of construction.  

“We are all aware of the shortage of high-quality, affordable housing across the region and I am confident this agreement will go some way to increasing and improving our housing stock.” 

As well as increasing the number of homes being built, the agreement also enables greater local input into the design and development of projects with a key priority of the LLP being the construction of homes that meet the specific housing needs of local people.  

The agreement will also include a pioneering approach that will assist in the development and delivery of the future Affordable Homes Programme which will be devolved from Homes England to the region in 2026. The WMCA will be responsible for setting the programme’s strategy, objectives and framework across the region.  

Through close partnership working with Homes England, local councils, housing associations and other parts of the housing sector the WMCA will seek to deliver a step change in the quantity and quality of new affordable homes. The LLP, and the wider WMHAP group, will play a crucial role in delivering that ambition.