Affordable Housing
The concept of affordable housing encompasses a broad spectrum of individual and family needs and housing types:
- General Needs - Housing provided to individuals and families at "target" rents set by The Housing Corporation.
- Shared Equity - Offers people who may not yet be able to afford the full price of a new home the chance to start on the property ladder by buying a share in a property, the balance of the share being retained by the RSL.
- Shared Ownership - Similar to Shared Equity but with a rental charge levied on the equity share retained by the RSL.
- Key Worker Housing - The term Key Worker typically encompasses essential workers, predominantly from the public sector. The housing can vary in type from single person to family housing and may include both Rented and Shared Equity tenures. Key Worker housing is increasingly the major element of the affordable housing provided on our developments.
- Sub Market Rent - In a similar manner to Shared Equity, Sub Market Rent offers housing solutions to people, who perhaps for reasons of work or lifestyle need to rent, but who may not be able to afford open market rents.
There are a number of keystones to our success in delivering affordable housing:
- Understanding & Influencing Housing Strategy, Policy & Funding - We are at the forefront of the Low Cost Housing agenda, enjoying close contact with organisations such as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, The Housing Corporation, English Partnerships, Local Authorities and RSLs.
- High Standards of Design and Construction - Our affordable housing developments meet and often exceed quality and performance targets set by The Housing Corporation.
- Simple Procurement Processes - We are standardising our approach to procurement which will allow us to deliver a consistently high quality affordable housing product.
- Partnerships - We are developing key long term relationships with a number of leading Housing Associations based on an understanding of each party's aims and objectives.
- Environmentally sustainable - All our new build schemes are accredited by Eco Homes assessors and comply with or exceed the relevant standard at the time.
- Innovation - We have received approval from the Housing Corporation of our plan compliant standard house plans.
