£45 million funding boost to support councils unlock land for thousands of homes

A £45 million cash injection into key community projects will help kick-start the building of thousands of new homes, Housing Minister Dominic Raab MP announced today (16 February 2018).As part of government’s drive to get Britain building homes again, a total of 79 projects from Newcastle to Plymouth will receive funding to support building up to 7,280 homes on council owned land.To support local councils to meet their ambition to unlock enough of land they own for at least 160,000 homes by 2020, they will be able to use the Land Release Fund money to combat barriers which would otherwise make land unusable for development.The projects – which aim to support building strong communities – include a range of necessary works such as asbestos removal and bat alleviation, as well as schemes that will significantly improve quality of life such as essential relocating of a pelican crossing.This move comes 2 weeks after the projects set to benefit from the first wave of funding from the £5 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund were announced, helping to get up to 200,000 homes off the ground through investment in local housing projects. This is part of the government’s comprehensive strategy of planning reform and targeted investment to build 300,000 homes a year.