Case study Nottingham Community Housing Association: working together to realise ‘More Homes’

Since being awarded joint strategic partnership status with Longhurst in 2019, Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) has been able to greater realise their vision of ‘more homes, great services, better lives’.

From: Homes England

A developer for the large majority of their 48 years, NCHA historically focussed on smaller sites which offered less risk, but steadily added to their stock of nearly 10,000 homes.

With the increased certainty that the strategic

partnership grant funding has given them, NCHA are developing bigger, longer term sites, building more affordable homes to help address the national housing shortage.

Allan Fisher, Director of Development and Assets at NCHA comments: “Being a strategic partner has opened doors for NCHA that might not have existed for us before. The certainty of having long term funding has allowed us to access bigger sites, resulting in more homes.

“What comes with that is the ability to build relationships with bigger developers, allowing us to take advantage of their established supply chains creating efficiencies that we might not have been able to realise before. Value for money is a key consideration for us, so this has been a welcome additional benefit.”

Since receiving the £26m grant allocation, NCHA has started three 50 plus property schemes across Leicester, Northampton and Derbyshire. The first of these is due to complete in March 2021, and will offer affordable rent homes and shared ownership properties to local people.

NCHA’s Chief Executive, Paul Moat reflects on some of the more indirect advantages of being a strategic partner: “Having the certainty of a five-year grant allocation is a positive indicator to the outside world. It reflects well on us when we’re business planning with lenders or external partners.

“The combination of a bigger development programme, along with a robust financial structure puts us in a great position to continue to deliver our social purpose for the foreseeable future.”

Speaking about the joint partnership with Longhurst, Paul added, “We were delighted to enter into a joint partnership with Longhurst having worked closely together over many years. We share similar development aims and values which makes for effective joint working to achieve our vision of building more homes.”