Liverpool based civil and structural engineering consultancy Sutcliffe has welcomed the government’s confirmation of the first wave of funding under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, while warning that delivery now rests on a construction supply chain that does not yet have the people to meet it.
Homes England confirmed this morning that £9,584,100,000 has been allocated to 33 Strategic Partners outside London, supporting the delivery of 73,617 social and affordable homes over the next ten years. Nearly two thirds of those homes are expected to be for social rent. It is the first major allocation under the £39bn programme running from 2026 to 2036, and the largest single commitment to social and affordable housing in a generation.
Four of the 33 Strategic Partners are headquartered in the North West. Onward Homes secured £345.1m for 3,000 homes, Torus £349.9m for 2,865 homes, Great Places Housing Group £320.6m for 2,600 homes and Jigsaw Homes North £249.5m for 1,990 homes: a combined £1.27bn supporting 10,455 new homes. Across the wider region, the Liverpool City Region is expected to see around £380m for approximately 3,100 homes, with Greater Manchester allocated an estimated £529m for around 4,400.
Sutcliffe already holds appointments on the framework routes that lead directly into the organisations named this morning. The practice sits on the Innovation Chain North Framework, which covers Great Places Housing Group, Onward Homes and Jigsaw Homes North, and on JV North, through which it works with Torus. It is also appointed to the frameworks operated in house by Platform Housing Group, Sanctuary, Clarion, Yorkshire Housing and Places for People, and to a number of lots through CHIC. Between them these routes place Sutcliffe in the delivery chain for a significant share of the North West allocation and for a further tranche of the national programme beyond it.
Sean Keyes, CEO of Sutcliffe, said: “This is the announcement the sector has been waiting three decades for. Ten year funding certainty changes behaviour in a way that annual settlements never could. It lets a housing association commit to a pipeline, and it lets a consultancy like ours commit to hiring and training against that pipeline rather than guessing.”
He added: “But money was always the simpler problem. You cannot build 73,617 homes without the engineers and surveyors to design them.”
“Sutcliffe has committed to training 40 new engineering and surveying apprentices over the next decade, investing in apprenticeship and graduate routes into the profession.
Sean Keyes said: “We are already appointed on the frameworks that serve the organisations named this morning, through Innovation Chain North, JV North, CHIC and the housing associations who run their own, so we know these clients and we know their sites. What we would say is that the grant is now committed and the clock has started.”
Established in 1985, Sutcliffe works across social and affordable housing, healthcare, education and infrastructure, with offices in Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales, London and the Midlands.
