£50m deal with Drum Housing Association is first in a series for the private developer
Private developer Asset Trust Housing this week signed the first in a series of deals to build £1bn of social housing – without grant – in the next four years.

It is one of a string of agreements that Asset Trust is negotiating with housing associations and councils that will make it one of the country's largest social housing developers.

The first deal will see Asset Trust build at least 500 homes at a cost of roughly £50m for Drum Housing Association over five years. The first homes will be built next year.

A subsidiary of Asset Trust will own the homes, Drum will manage and maintain them and rents will be kept to government rent restructuring guidelines.

The developments will be on a mix of local authority land, sites in developments by volume housebuilders gained through planning gain agreements and speculative development sites. They will be in Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex.

Andrew Cobb, chief executive of Drum Housing Association, said the deal would allow the association to develop in areas where it was difficult to get grant. "This is a way of meeting the gap between what is developable from grant and housing need in the South-east.

"We are not precious about not owning the assets as long as we can provide management and maintenance expertise to make sure they are dealt with in the same way as our own social housing. We are part of a successful bidding consortium but we are taking it as read that more resources will go to the growth areas and areas where we work may lose out without sources of funding like this."

Other private developers First Base, Newco and North Country Homes all also aim to build social housing without grant.

Source

Housing Today