Homes England, Savills and Urban&Civic brought a group of SME housebuilders together from across the Midlands and South of England in May at Houlton, to discuss the SME’s role in addressing housing need and to increase the diversity of delivery on large-scale developments.
Savills set the scene through the broad housing market and delivery context, focusing particularly on the challenges and opportunities faced by the sector. Homes England described its clear support via the Home Building Fund which is responding to the constraints within the SME sector by providing targeted development finance. Urban&Civic then explained its delivery model and how its approach to providing service land parcels is reducing barriers to entry for SMEs on its large-scale sites.
Family owned company, Francis Jackson Homes, are already on site at Urban&Civic owned Priors Hall in Corby. Managing Director Nick Jackson attended the event and said; “Access to land and finance continue to be the main constraints faced in the market for many SME builders and it is encouraging to see U&C and Homes England addressing that. The U&C model de-risks land and provides a really strong development platform for us to deliver our high quality product alongside national house builders. Combined with the injection of cash through Homes England to accelerate infrastructure on these sites, we are collectively creating really attractive and popular places to live.”