Large housing association buys 900-home site

The Guinness Partnership has bought a 928-home site with full planning permission in Leeds, it announced.The development, which will be Guinness’ biggest single consented residential scheme in the association’s history, involves building new homes at Hunslet Road near Leeds Dock.Under previous plans for the site before Guinness bought it, just 5% of the new homes would have been affordable – it has increased this to 35%.The 66,000-home association bought the site, just minutes from Leeds Station, from developer X1 Developments.It did this with the support of part of the £224m it received from Homes England under Guinness’ strategic partnership agreement with the government agency and fellow housing association Stonewater.Under this agreement, the two housing associations are supposed to start building an extra 4,500 affordable homes across England by 2022.