HCA reveals shortlist for Get Britain Building

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has today published a shortlist of 224 schemes bidding for the Get Britain Building fund, unlocking stalled sites across the country.

Following a strong response to the programme, announced as a £420m fund as part of the housing strategy, the Government today committed a further £150m of investment to take the total available to £570m.

The 170 expressions of interest, containing bids for 392 schemes, have been assessed by the HCA – looking at value for money, deliverability and fit with local priorities – and the 224 shortlisted schemes will now be invited to enter a due diligence process before any contracts are signed.

The programme is on course to get sites restarted from June this year, protecting and creating jobs and ultimately unlocking more than 15,500 new homes by December 2014.

Pat Ritchie, Chief Executive of the HCA said:

"The Get Britain Building programme continues to gather pace as today we publish the shortlist of 224 schemes now moving to the next stage of the bidding process.

"This additional funding is testament to the excellent response from the sector, and we will now test each of these schemes thoroughly to ensure it will generate the much-needed homes and jobs quickly, meet local priorities and represent a value for money investment for the taxpayer.

"The shortlist contains a mix of properties and housing tenures, small to large builders and diverse locations, but they will all bring a welcome boost to local economies and I look forward to seeing work restarting on these sites from June."

The programme met its aims to support a range of small to large housebuilders, unlocking schemes ranging from 25 new homes to 300. The schemes on the shortlist are a mix of housing and flats, and also contain around 2,000 new affordable homes.

The shortlist builds on the first 18 sites announced under a special commissioning phase in February, which, subject to due diligence and contracting, will receive an allocation of up to £46m to deliver up to 1,300 new homes, on private and public sector sites.

Get Britain Building is intended to address difficulties in accessing development finance faced by some house builders and to help bring forward sites with planning permission, but where viability is marginal, by sharing risk. It will operate by making loans available to projects on commercial rates, or taking equity stakes to share risk. The investment is recoverable over a two to five year period, and by March 2018.

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Notes to editors

The full list of shortlisted schemes and more information on the programme is available from the HCA website: http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/get-britain-building.