Homes England has confirmed a £27.7 million investment to unlock the Sheepfolds neighbourhood, the largest residential quarter planned within the Riverside Sunderland regeneration programme, with a further £10 million already committed by North East Mayor Kim McGuinness to complement the funding package.
The investment will fund the infrastructure and public realm works needed to make the former industrial site developable for residential use, including new roads, utilities and active travel routes. That enabling package is the critical precursor to delivery of more than 350 new homes, which form part of Sunderland City Council’s wider ambition to deliver over 1,000 homes across the city centre.
For the construction supply chain, the announcement signals the next phase of active delivery at one of the North East’s most significant brownfield regeneration programmes. Riverside Sunderland has already produced tangible built outputs – most recently the Keel Crossing pedestrian footbridge, opened last year with Homes England backing – and the Sheepfolds investment follows the same model of infrastructure-first funding designed to de-risk and accelerate residential delivery on complex sites.
The programme sits within the Riverside Sunderland Creative Mayoral Development Zone and benefits from the recently confirmed joint Major Projects Delivery Unit, a partnership between the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority, Homes England and local authority partners described as one of the first arrangements of its kind in England. That structure, combining mayoral, national agency and council resources under a unified delivery function, is designed to accelerate progress on complex sites across the region and is likely to generate further investment decisions of this type.
Councillor Chris Eynon, Leader of Sunderland City Council, confirmed the funding will “enable delivery of infrastructure and public realm that will accelerate housing delivery, improve connectivity, and ensure the neighbourhood is fully integrated with the city centre and surrounding communities.”
The Sheepfolds site connects to the former Vaux brewery site and through to the wider city centre, making its infrastructure works integral to the broader urban regeneration of Sunderland’s riverside corridor rather than a standalone residential scheme.
Credit: Creo Comms
