Small Sites Initiative

In early 2021, Local Partnerships launched an SME Pilot Initiative with Cornwall, Tendring and Thurrock councils to stimulate the small and medium enterprise (SME) house building sector in delivering high quality, affordable homes which the councils would purchase.

The ambition was to develop a new small sites initiative to provide a fast-track route to getting SMEs and other developers working on building sites, whilst at the same time increasing the supply of social and affordable rented homes.  

Under this initiative, councils will enter into a contract to forward purchase newly constructed homes for social and affordable rent off-plan for a fixed price. Sites would typically deliver up to 10 homes and, whilst schemes do not need to be shovel-ready, ideally land is already owned by the developer or can be easily acquired. The project guarantees the sale of the properties to the council at pre-agreed prices; and includes an option for staged payments to help with SME cashflow. The SME’s are responsible for working up scheme proposals and securing a planning consent.  

Local Partnerships worked closely with the pilot councils in the drafting of all documentation including specification, tender and legal documents and draft marketing materials.

Supporting councils

Following our work with Cornwall, Tendring and Thurrock councils we have supported a further two councils, Rotherham MBC and North Norfolk Council, in progressing these initiatives where both councils want to see more new affordable homes being built by small and medium developers or companies. 

North Norfolk Council sought to partner with two housing associations, Broadland Housing Association and Flagship Housing Group, that would be the intended end purchasers of the newly built units. Engaging housing associations in the initiative is an interesting and different approach has the potential to be rolled out elsewhere to speed up the delivery of affordable homes, particularly for non-stock holding authorities.

Our support included assistance in brokering the conversations between the housing associations and council, working with both the council and the housing associations to ensure that the newly built homes would meet with each housing associations’ affordable housing specification and pricing. Whilst the housing association standard housing specifications were quite different in terms of specification and content, we were able to agree relatively straightforward specifications for both. The imperative is achieving good energy standards, ensuring the homes are easy and inexpensive to heat, in addition to good space standards for families. This project will work alongside the Council’s Exception Scheme, which helps provide affordable housing in the countryside to meet local housing needs.

Positive contribution

We are confident that the SME initiative will make a positive contribution to delivering additional high quality homes to meet local affordable housing needs whilst helping to support local jobs within the SME sector. Both Rotherham Council and North Norfolk Council have launched their initiatives and currently there is no deadline and proposals will be considered in relation to current or future developments.