Mayor's new deal aims to speed up new home building projects
North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has announced a new partnership to press ahead with her pledge to build 15,000 new affordable homes in the North East.
The deal with Homes England aims to speed up house building across region over the next 10 years – using disused ‘brownfield’ land.
Ms McGuinness and Homes England – the Government’s housing and regeneration agency – are planning to create a joint Major Projects Delivery Unit, one of the first arrangements of its kind in England and the first of its scale in the North East.
The unit aims to bring together expertise, resources and leadership from the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, Homes England and local authority partners to ‘unlock’ complex sites and support major developments.
The Mayoral authority, this week gave the go-ahead to the Mayor’s Plan for Homes – which has already seen developments completed in Blyth and ‘brownfield’ sites like Ashington’s Coulson Park among those earmarked for homes.
The new joint delivery aims to accelerate housing and regeneration with shared project oversight, joint working arrangements and specialist support.
Ms McGuinness said: "The North East is ambitious about growth, housebuilding and regeneration, and I want to turn that ambition into delivery.
"That includes 15,000 new affordable homes in the next decade to tackle the housing crisis, and ensure a safe, secure and affordable home is within reach for everyone.”
She added: “We’re getting on with building more homes, unlocking stalled sites, and working across the region to tackle homelessness, and this new joint-approach will only help drive that further and faster.”
Tom Bridges, executive regional director at Homes England, said: “The North East has huge potential for growth, and this enhanced partnership with the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, building on our already established Strategic Place Partnership, is exactly the kind of joined-up approach that unlocks it.
"By bringing together our expertise, resources and relationships through the new Major Projects Delivery Unit, we can move faster on the complex sites and major schemes that will make a real difference to people's lives – more homes, more regeneration and more opportunity across the region.”