Legal & General signs £44m housing partnership

Legal & General has joined forces with Croydon Council to provide 167 homes for families on the local authority’s housing waiting list.

Under the deal, Legal & General will invest £44.6m into a mixture of houses and apartments in Croydon and neighbouring boroughs, which will then be leased back to Croydon on a 40-year term, after which time they will belong to the local authority.

The homes will be managed by Croydon’s housing team and offered to those on the council’s housing waiting list.

They will also provide stability for local families and residents, many of whom have been living in emergency accommodation, and according to Legal & General it will also help save the council around £20m.

The investment is being made on behalf of Legal & General Retirement Institutional, which provides an excellent match for its long-term annuity and pension commitments.

Legal & General were advised by Savills.

‘The council set up Croydon Affordable Homes so hundreds of local families can get good-quality homes with secure tenancies, and Legal & General’s investment will save us around £20m in loan costs that means we can assist even more families in the long term,’ said council leader, Cllr Alison Butler.

‘At a time when the government is squeezing how much it funds local authorities, this innovative partnership offers us better value for money than more traditional loans available to councils, and I hope this encourages other councils and financial institutions to follow suit.’

Legal & General’s head of public sector partnerships, Pete Gladwell, added: ‘We want to enable society to shape its future through our investments; investing into sectors where we can make a real difference. This means enabling some of the most vulnerable in society to shape their world by providing stable addresses to apply for work from, and a kitchen table where their children can study.

‘Partnerships like this, between forward thinking institutions and local authorities, can also turn statutory duties such as the provision of temporary accommodation from revenue drains into revenue generators, enabling councils to take control of their finances. Having launched our new affordable housing business last year, this investment highlights our continued determination to innovate within the sector and to work together to address the UK’s chronic housing crisis.’

Photo by jarmoluk (Pixabay)