Homes England funding to speed up building of 1,300 homes in Cambridge

Hill Marshall LLP, a joint venture between Marshall Group Properties and Hill,  has secured a funding deal with Homes England to accelerate the delivery of 1,300 homes in Cambridge.

The new development, Wing, will be delivered on 160 acres of brownfield land owned by the Marshall Group. The 10-year loan, worth £22.4m, will be drawn from Homes England’s Home Building Fund (HBF).

The loan means the first phase of housing at Wing will be delivered ‘up to 18 months ahead of schedule.’

The HBF helps unlock or accelerate the delivery of residential and mixed-use housing developments through both development loans and loan funding for the infrastructure needed to prepare land for development.

The first phase of the development will be delivered by Hill and once complete will comprise 350 private homes and 150 affordable homes, including shared ownership and affordable rent tenures.

A spokesperson from Hill Marshall LLP said: ‘Marshall Group and Hill are two like-minded family firms committed to making Cambridge one of the best cities to live in the UK. We are delighted to have secured new funding from Homes England’s Home Building Fund for this development in the city – it will ensure we are able to deliver an outstanding new community for local residents in half the amount of time it would normally take. Cambridge has long been established as one of the best places to live in the UK and this new community seeks to add further to the city’s success.’

Nick Walkley, Homes England Chief Executive, added: ‘At Homes England, we’re using our land, finance and expertise to speed up the delivery of new homes. This loan through our Home Building Fund is a significant step towards seeing this 1,300 home new community at this key development site in Cambridge become a reality and I look forward to seeing work start on site.’

Homes England are also funding the relocation of the ground running enclosure at Cambridge airport, which is a purpose-built enclosure to reduce noise effects from aircraft engineering testing and a key planning requirement to be completed before any houses are occupied at the site. The relocation of the ground running enclosure will also support the creation of up to a further 1,800 new homes in development sites around the airport.