Government announces £290m investment in housing

The government has pledged almost £290m in Greater Manchester, the west of England and Oxfordshire to help deliver thousands of new homes for local communities, housing secretary Sajid Javid has announced.

Greater Manchester is set to receive £68m of funding to support the mayor’s ambitious target of delivering 227,200 homes by 2035. The Greater Manchester funding will also support a focus on developing brownfield land for housing and getting more homes built on small sites. This will be done through a £50m land fund which will help councils in the region prepare brownfield land for housing development.

The government has said that extra support for the west of England will help to almost double the number of new homes being delivered, increasing from around 4,000 to 7,500 homes a year. The funding also includes £3m for specialist support to help the region deliver large housing developments.

Ministers have also approved a housing deal with Oxfordshire worth £215m that will help deliver a further 100,000 new homes for local people. This follows a similar deal agreed with the West Midlands last week to support the Mayor’s ambitious plan to deliver 215,000 homes across the region.

This latest announcement comes as the government has also announced that Housing Infrastructure Fund bids from a further 44 areas for projects to help unlock more homes across the country, have been shortlisted to the next stage of the competitive process.

They will now move to the co-development stage, where government officials will work with these areas to further develop their bid and assess the projects.

Successful bids will be announced from autumn 2018 onwards and local authorities would then begin building the necessary infrastructure to help speed up new homes being built.

A potential £4.1bn of funding will also be available for vital infrastructure like roads, bridges, new schools and medical centres.

‘This new housing investment in Greater Manchester, the west of England and Oxfordshire will help build much-needed homes, giving more people the opportunity to get on the property ladder,’ said Mr Javid.

We’re also investing in local infrastructure like schools, roads and hospitals so that we can help unlock even more new homes in the areas where they’re needed most and build a Britain fit for the future,’