Homes England Launches Levelling Up Home Building Fund – Development Finance

This scheme will support innovative developers and SME housebuilders to build more homes more quickly and to create thriving communities across England.

The Government’s housing delivery agency, Homes England, helps to build the homes needed across England and encourage innovation, both in the kind of homes that are built and the way they are delivered.

Through the Levelling Up Home Building Fund, investment is provided directly to developers, in the form of loans, and to specialist lenders. Development finance is designed to support small and medium homebuilders that are struggling to access finance from the private market and to help new entrants into the housing sector, to bolster house building and diversify the market.

In addition to providing development loans, Homes England is keen to explore how funding from the Levelling Up Home Building Fund can be used to develop more sophisticated financial arrangements, such as lending alliances with the private sector, increasing the amount of funding provided to the housebuilding sector.

The fund also has the capacity to form joint ventures, which can support projects to regenerate town centres and revive public places, working with local councils, housing developers and others.

Loans can start from £250,000, with house builders typically borrowing between £2 million and £5 million to cover development costs. The Fund will also consider smaller loans for innovative housing solutions.

Small or medium-sized house builders and innovative developers in England may apply. They will need to have majority control of the site they plan to build on, and be planning to build or refurbish five or more homes on a site in England (refurbished units must be uninhabitable at the point of applying for a loan).

Applicants must be a UK-registered corporate entity or limited liability partnership (LLP). They must be undertaking projects that would stall, or progress much less quickly, without this finance.

There is no set deadline for applications to be made.

(This report was the subject of a GRANTfinder Newsflash.)