£35m fund for new homes annoounced by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

The Brownfield Housing Fund will open for applications from private sector developers, housing associations, and other housing developers, between the dates of Monday, September 5, and Friday October 28.

Gemma Smith, Co-Chair SYMCA Housing and Infrastructure Board and Managing Director Strata Homes said: “In these challenging economic times, this open call for applications provides an opportunity to support and accelerate the development of much needed new homes across South Yorkshire that may otherwise not be built due to viability issues.

“We welcome applications from across South Yorkshire’s housing sector.”

In June 2020, the Government launched its A New Deal for Britain initiative, said to be the first step in the strategy to rebuild Britain following Covid-19, and fuel economic recovery across the UK.

As part of this strategy, £40m of capital was allocated to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) for supporting the development of housing schemes.

Following this, SYMCA was also awarded a further £13m as part of the Levelling Up agenda, making a total of £53m, with a spend deadline of end March 2025 and an output target of between 3,300 and 4,600 new homes. £35m of this total has been allotted to the Brownfield Housing Fund.

SYMCA notes it will prioritise schemes based on how well they deliver against the principles of stronger, greener, and fairer, along with also evaluating the overall risk and deliverability of proposals.

Proposals which align with the ambitions of other relevant investment funds, for example the Town Deal Fund, High Street Fund, the Transforming Cities Fund and the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement will also be prioritised.

SYMCA state that schemes which adopt innovations and/or raise the quality and standards of homes across South Yorkshire are also particularly welcome.