Curo News

Curo and Swan to boost delivery of new affordable housing with Homes England partnership

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 15:10:26 Z

West of England housing association Curo and Essex-based Swan have secured a new strategic partnership with Homes England to build more affordable homes.

Curo and Swan will receive £160.4 million funding from the new Affordable Homes Programme to deliver 2,425 homes over the next five years, in addition to their existing development pipelines.

The homes will be a mix of social/affordable rent and low-cost ownership tenures and will be delivered across the housing associations’ respective operating areas in South West and South East England.

This is the second time Curo and Swan have secured strategic partnership funding, after being granted £51.1 million in 2019 to build 1,067 new affordable homes by March 2024.

Aside from making possible much-needed new affordable homes, the government funding will also help drive investment in local economies and create jobs and skills.

In South West England, Curo works in partnership with housing associations Alliance Homes and Magna Housing to accelerate delivery of new affordable housing through their strategic partnership with Homes England.

Curo Chief Executive, Victor da Cunha, says: “I’m delighted that Curo and Swan have again been chosen as strategic partners of the government’s housing agency. Working with Swan as our joint Homes England strategic partner and our delivery partners in South West England, Alliance and Magna, has been very successful over the past few years and I’m sure it will continue to be a productive partnership in the future.

“Delivering another c. 2,500 homes with Homes England is an exciting prospect. The South West is in desperate need of additional social rent and low-cost homeownership housing at prices local people can genuinely afford. With this additional £160m investment, we will be able to boost output and further address the regional housing crisis.”

Swan Housing Association is one of the leading regenerating social landlords across Essex and East London. They recently acquired a second modular housing factory in Basildon, where they will precision engineer steel framed volumetric homes as part of their strategic partnership delivery.

John Synnuck, Swan CEO, says: “We are delighted that we now have this opportunity to continue to successfully work in partnership with Curo and deliver on Homes England’s ambitious affordable housing programme.

“We particularly welcome the focus in the new 5-year programme on the use of Modern Methods of Construction to deliver these much-needed affordable homes and we will use our second modular housing factory to build high quality new homes whilst creating new jobs, retraining staff from other sectors and supporting UK manufacturing to help the UK to build back better.”

Social rent homes are usually 50-60% of market prices, while affordable rent sits at about 80% of market rate. Many of the new homes funded by the strategic partnership grant will be available through the affordable homeownership schemes, helping more young people and families to get a foot on the housing ladder.

More affordable homes for West of England

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:48:51 Z

Image above: West of England Mayor, Tim Bowles (left) and Curo Chief Executive, Victor da Cunha (right) at Curo's Mulberry Park development in Bath

340 new affordable homes will be built in the West of England thanks to a commitment from local housing association Curo to invest £25m of government funding in the region.

A Strategic Partnership agreement between Homes England and Bath-based Curo has been agreed, with support from the West of England Combined Authority, which is working with partners to build more much-needed affordable homes, more quickly.

Curo and the West of England Combined Authority have been working together to enable a commitment that the funding will deliver homes in the West of England.

As part of this Strategic Partnership, secured in collaboration with Essex-based Swan Housing, Curo has agreed to earmark £25m to deliver more than 340 new affordable homes within the region over the next five years. The scheme has been made possible by a government grant from Homes England, the government body sponsored by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), whose purpose is to accelerate the delivery of new homes.

This will begin with proposals to build up to 47 new affordable homes at Broadbury Road in Filwood, Bristol, and a planning application is currently being prepared.

Victor da Cunha, CEO of Curo, said: “We’re very pleased to be working with the West of England Combined Authority, Homes England and councils in our region to deliver these new homes. We work in an area which experiences acute housing affordability issues; building new housing will provide hundreds of local families with secure, long term homes.

“We very much welcome the government’s provision of grant funding through the Strategic Partnership scheme; it recognises Housing Associations’ key role in addressing the country’s housing crisis and allows us to accelerate our investment and build programme.”

Tim Bowles, West of England Mayor, said: “This partnership is responding to our need for more affordable homes, by committing to major development in our region.

“We need more homes for our residents to buy and rent. We need homes in the right places and at prices people can afford. The West of England Combined Authority is proud to support this partnership, and I am confident that it will deliver successful places where people will aspire to be.”

Curo scoops Developer of the Year 2018 title at Bath Property Awards

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 10:01:27 Z

Photo: Adam Carter; Curo colleagues from left to right: Sales Manager Susan Harrison, Planning & Technical Director, Sarah Maylor, Sales Director, Lisa Howells and Managing Director, Gerraint Oakley.

Bath-based housing association and house-builder Curo has won the Developer of the Year 2018 title at the inaugural Bath Property Awards, which celebrate the city’s dynamic property sector.

The ceremony took place at the Apex Hotel on Friday 23 November and brought together house-builders, architects, contractors, suppliers and professional services providers for the property sector.

The judges said: “Curo is out on its own in terms of what it does. ‘Profit for purpose’ flows through the business; exceptional year, balancing commercial opportunities with social responsibility.”

Curo managing Director, Gerraint Oakley, says: “We’re delighted and proud to win this recognition, having been shortlisted alongside some great Bath-based developers.

“Housing associations like Curo are making a significant contribution to solving the UK’s housing crisis. Our commercial activity – building homes for market sale - enables us to generate surpluses which we reinvest in creating more affordable housing for local people. This is what we call ‘profit for purpose’ and is the main reason we established our house-building business. Last year, we invested £17.1m in building new affordable homes.

“We’re best known for Mulberry Park, our award-winning project of 700 homes in South Bath, but we’re a multi-site developer with a number of schemes at different stages of development throughout the South West. Our housing delivery pipeline for the next five years will see the addition of more than 2,200 homes across the region.”

Curo was also a finalist in the ‘Residential Development’ category with its Mulberry Park scheme, which won the ‘Property’ accolade at the popular Bath Life Awards earlier this year.

Curo and Bellway sign agreement to bring 171 new affordable homes to South West region

Mon, 06 Aug 2018 14:17:28 Z

A £28m deal has been agreed to bring 171 new affordable homes to Bristol, Somerset and Wiltshire.

Housing association and housebuilder Curo and national housebuilder Bellway have joined forces to deliver the homes over the next few years under a strategic S106 package deal.

The deal is the first of its kind for both Curo and Bellway South West. It means Curo will be the sole provider of affordable homes across six Bellway developments.

Curo Chief Executive Victor da Cunha said: “The homes will be a mix of social and affordable rent as well as shared ownership. Importantly, they will enable us to help even more local people in our region to move into a modern, energy-efficient home they can afford.

“We’re delighted to enter this partnership with Bellway. While we are a developer in our own right, collaboration with others is also critically important because it enables us to increase the numbers of homes we let each year and therefore helps address the huge housing need we have across the South West. We hope that this will be the first of many other similar ventures.”

The package deal satisfies Bellway’s section 106 planning obligations to provide affordable homes on its developments. Developers usually work with different housing associations across their schemes and there can be more than one social housing provider on one site. Housing associations acquire these homes to let them on social and affordable rents to local people who can’t afford the market value.

The new homes will cost Curo £28million and will be 100% funded from the organisation’s own resources.

Bellway will also build 326 homes for private sale on the developments in Wickwar, Corsham, Bradford on Avon, Hanham, Melksham and Banwell.

Paul Minnis, Managing Director for Bellway South West, said: “Working with one affordable housing partner across six of our new developments will bring benefits to Bellway, Curo and residents of the private and affordable homes we are building. Together we will work in a more effective and cost-efficient way to make these homes available to local people more quickly.

“The deal comes at a significant point in Bellway’s expansion across the South West. The partnership demonstrates the crucial role of new homes developments in providing affordable housing to meet local needs. Our new developments will also generate investment in infrastructure such as education, healthcare and transport as part of our additional section 106 obligations.”

This is not the first time the two organisations have teamed up to deliver new homes. Bellway also work alongside Curo’s own house-building team at the award-winning Mulberry Park development in South Bath, where each is building private and affordable homes.