Housing fund approves £3.5m in invesments for Birmingham

A £9m fund set up to unlock stalled housing sites across Greater Birmingham has approved £3.5m worth of investments to support the building of almost 300 homes in its first year.The Unlocking Stalled Housing Sites Programme launched in 2016 by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP), managed by Finance Birmingham, is designed to remove barriers to development. It is aiming to bring forward at least 500 new homes within the next three years.The programme provides grant and loan funding for stalled sites that are ready for development and is intended to support mixed tenure schemes of between ten and 100 homes.Areas benefitting from the fund include Cannock, where Anglesey Real Estate has completed a ten-unit site, Craig & Watts Holdings is working on almost 40 new homes and Anglesey Estates Bridgtown is building five units. Developers in Lichfield, Solihull and Moseley are also working on projects made possible by investments approved from the fund.Ian MacLeod, assistant director of planning at Birmingham City Council and programme head for the Unlocking Stalled Housing Sites Programme, said: “Increasing the rate of housing delivery across the GBSLEP is vitally important if we are to meet the housing needs of our growing population.