Homes England releases £200m roadmap

Homes England has published a list of major works worth more than £200m.

The document, which is the first to be published under the new Labour government and the first since February, details all the projects planned for the next 18 months.

It involves works worth £210.2 million, some of which will start as early as November 2024. It includes 14 projects in total.

Government agencies including Homes England and the Department for Transport have been publishing project timelines since 2022 to notify industry of upcoming contracts and enable work and procurement teams to plan accordingly.

The largest job announced in the new scheme is the £52m Phase 3a and 3b of a new town called Northstowe in South Cambridgeshire. The two phases will deliver 5,000 new homes and three primary schools.

Homes England originally submitted plans for the 30-year project to the local council in 2020. The agency also delivered new roads, public transport routes and cycle paths for the town.

The tender for the project is expected to be held in December, and the contract is expected to be signed in June 2025. The construction project is expected to last a total of 44 months.

Homes England is also expecting to launch a tender for Northstowe highways and infrastructure in January worth £27.6m, which it says will be awarded in August next year. This contract will run for 27 months. There will be a further £5m project next year for other road development works in Northstowe.

The second largest contract in the pipeline is a £30m framework contract for monitoring and management services for Homes England’s property development. The tender will be issued in October and the contract will be awarded in May next year.

Homes England has also released details of a £27m project set to be built at Burtree Garden Village, near Darlington. The 18-month project – which is the first phase of development work – will include the construction of an access roundabout, a main road and secondary roads for the new town.

The tender was published last month and Homes England expects to award the contract in December.

In January 2023, Homes England announced it had invested £43m in a new town that will deliver 2,000 new homes and 200,000 square metres of living space across 307 acres.

In January 2023, Homes England, in partnership with developer Hellens Group, submitted an application to Darlington Borough Council for planning permission to develop the town.

The plan also includes a £15m plan for a new primary school in Brookleigh, a growth town in Sussex, as well as early planting work and the creation of a mobility corridor outside the school site in the same town, worth a total of £5m.

The new Labour government announced major changes to housing soon after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer entered Number 10 Downing Street, leaving homebuilders “heartened”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to reinstate local housing targets, in line with Labour’s manifesto promise to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

The government is currently consulting on changes to planning law that aim to free up so-called “grey belt” areas – previously developed areas in the green belt – for housing development.