The UK’s largest scaffolding trade body has welcomed new funding that will provide £300m to UK housebuilders and secure work across the construction sector.
The Housing Growth Partnership Fund aims to support SME and regional housebuilders with the development of 10,000 new homes by 2025.
Established by Lloyds Banking Group and Homes England in 2016, the partnership enters its second phase helping to bridge the homebuilder funding gap, allowing housebuilders to build more houses across the UK and grow their own businesses so that they can support further projects in the future.
The partnership has already invested alongside 46 housebuilders to support the delivery of over 4,568 new homes, with nearly half now completed and sold to families across the UK.
The latest funding will be broader in scope to enable investment into larger housebuilding projects with a development value of up to £75 million. It will offer support for the delivery of a wider range of housing projects including Build to Rent, Regeneration and Retirement Living.
The partnership will also look to prioritise projects with a greater sustainability focus, as well as those using modern methods of construction and other evolutionary construction methods.
Robert Candy, Chief Executive of the Scaffolding Association, commented “A significant amount of construction is needed in the coming decade to fulfil the government’s plan for building 300,000 homes per annum and this funding will help with this ambitious target.
However, there is still a great deal of uncertainty within the sector with product availability, rising material costs and skills shortages already resulting in developers pausing or rethinking their plans. Whilst this funding is of course welcome, it will not resolve these broader challenges”.
He added, “The Scaffolding Association is a strong advocate for improved skills provision and access to work within the construction sector and works tirelessly to highlight where improvements are needed to support growth with government, stakeholders, training boards and policy decision makers”.
