CPEGC 3 Cambridgeshire Peterborough David McQuade Flagship

Amazon has met an East Anglian housing association to discuss how homes can be delivered more cheaply, its Chief Executive has revealed.

David McQuade, Chief Executive of the Norwich-based Flagship Group, told delegates that he had recently held a meeting with the online retail giant: “They’re not only looking to help housing associations on technological issues, they are focusing on how to build a house for less.”

McQuade said Amazon’s interest in housing demonstrated the changing nature of the sector, which was also reflected by the entry of private investors like Blackstone and Legal & General.

He did however admit that many of Flagship’s residents struggle to even pay the sub-market rents charged by his association. Half of those living in the homes that Flagship rents out at 60% of market levels, struggle to meet their payments, which typically work out at £100-120 per week for a two-bed property: “Many customers struggle to pau rent because incomes are low.”

He said there is a ‘very limited supply’ of affordable housing coming through even at this 60% level: “At some point that will become a bigger issues.”

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Flagship Group, which will own and manage 28.000 homes when its merger with Norfolk-based Victory Housing Trust goes through, has an aspiration to build 10,000 new dwellings over ten years. Of this total, it aims that 80% will be sub-market rented housing or shared ownership with the balance comprised of outright sale in order to cross-subsidise the association’s core affordable provision.

Whilst most of Flagship’s new units currently tend to be acquired through the section 106 process, it aims to undertake ‘much more land led development’. To help accelerate its rate of delivery Flagship is forming a joint-venture (JV) with Longhurst, Hyde and Crossquays known as Evera, with the objective of delivering 2,100 site starts within five years when it is up and running. 

The JV’s first project is the redevelopment of a clinic in Ramsey, where it plans 60 new homes, 24 of which have been earmarked for affordable housing.

Matthew Sampson, Development Director of U+I, said that the regeneration specialist has just submitted a £200m Housing Infrastructure Fund bid with the landowners of its Cambridge northern fringe east development with a decision on the bid expected towards the end of the first quarter of 2019: “If we are successful it will be a big vote of confidence in the region.”

Sampson said the new city quarter, which is due to be developed on an Anglia Water owned site to the west of Cambridge rail station, will accommodate around 5,000 homes and 1m sq ft of commercial, leisure and community space. U+I will be engaging with community and stakeholders over the next couple of years on its masterplan for the site.”

In the meantime, U+I has plans to create a container village, including affordable start up laboratory space, to kickstart the site’s regeneration, Sampson said: “It gives the opportunity to test things with people and get a buzz on the site.”

U+I is also examining built to rent (BTR) to help accelerate delivery on the site, which would take more than 20 years to build out at normal market sales absorption rates: “We want to deliver this more quickly so will be looking at BTR because it helps to improve delivery speeds by seven times.”

They’ll also be looking to form partnerships with registered providers as the earmark a high proportion of the development for affordable housing to both comply with policy and further help speed up delivery.

Tim Leathes, Development Director of Strategic Land at Urban & Civic, said that it has 2,546 acres of strategic land with consent for more than 15,000 homes across Cambridgeshire. He said that every week, two or three families moving into the strategic developer’s scheme at Alconbury.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and county councils are amongst the tenants which have already moved into the 1m sq ft of employment space to have already been built at the site, he said: “It’s going incredibly well and ahead of expectations.”

Urban & Civic is also already building on site at Wintingham St Neots, having only submitted a planning application for 2,800 new homes in October: “It’s possible to go quickly in this area.”

Hannah Pattinson, Strategic Land Regional Director at Linden Homes, said cash strapped planning departments are ‘really struggling’ with the consequences of cutbacks in local Government: “All developers prefer the plan led process rather than aggressive, speculative applications which are high risk and adversarial. We would always prefer to talk to the right people so that we know we are heading in the right direction. Political risk is the high threat at the moment and the longer this goes on more, the more risk there is.”
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