Kier secures largest HCA allocation with £42m contract

Kier Living has secured one of the largest allocations of funds from the Housing and Communities Agency with an allocation of £41.9 million to build just over 1,700 new shared ownership homes in England over the next four years.

The contract is a part of a £1.28bn first round allocation from the Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme 2016 to 2021 (SOAHP 2016 to 2021), which is now worth £7bn in total, having received a £1.4bn boost in the Autumn Statement in November.

SOAHP now supports the building of more ‘shared ownership’ homes, offering access to home ownership for those struggling with affordability, as well as new ‘rent to buy’ homes, enabling first time buyers to save for a deposit to buy whilst renting at discounted rates, and ’affordable rental’ homes for those renting in the private sector.

This allocation reinforces Kier’s position as one of the country’s leading public sector housing developers, having launched a range of funding and delivery innovations designed to stimulate and facilitate public sector house building.  Over the last 12 months this has ranged from the launch of the £1bn New Communities Partnership fund, through to the creation of several major joint ventures with leading housing associations, through the Northern Ventures model.

John Anderson, Executive Director at Kier Living, said, “Kier Group has been operating in the multi-tenure housing market for over 70 years and this allocation of grant is testament to the leading role we now play in public sector housing delivery.

This success is not only built on an enduring commitment to the sector and our public sector partners, but also on our continual investment in innovation and market stimulus; unlocking new ways to build new homes.  For example last year we announced our collaboration with Cheyne Capital and the Housing Growth Partnership to develop the £1bn New Communities Partnership with and end to end turnkey solution for local authorities.

“We welcome the opportunities that this first allocation of SOAHP brings. It is an encouraging indicator of what we may look forward to in the Housing White paper over the coming weeks.”