SELEP wins major national housing award

The South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) has become the first LEP in the country to be awarded national Housing Business Ready status by The Housing & Finance Institute (HFI).
 
The Partnership has led the way in delivering the vital new homes needed by people in the region and has now received national recognition for its excellent work.
 
The Housing & Finance Institute’s flagship Housing Business Ready programme works with councils, businesses and organisations across the UK to help them build more homes faster.
 
The establishment of The Housing & Finance Institute was announced by George Osborne in March 2015. Since June 2015 it has been working with councils and businesses to help them deliver new homes for their communities.
 
The HFI and SELEP have worked together to deliver the Housing Business Ready programme to six councils across the South-East region. A further four programmes are scheduled for the Autumn targeting coastal towns in the South-East.
 
SELEP provided strategic economic insight and knowledge of housing market area alongside the HFI’s extensive housing expertise. This first of its kind partnership has also capitalised on their work by using the programme findings in workshops and speaker events across the region to develop additional skills capacity to meet growth.
 
This collective work is already making a demonstrable difference. In figures for housing delivery in 2015/16 compared to housing delivery in 2014/15 by Local Enterprise Partnership area, SELEP performed strongly, delivering 10,600 completed dwellings in 2015/16, compared to 7,690 in 2014/15 – an increase of 33 per cent.
 
SELEP outperformed 36 other Local Enterprise Partnerships and the English average increase of 13 per cent.
 
In addition, only 19 per cent of home building ‘starts’ were delivered in 2012/13, rising to 29 per cent in 2015 - a 10 per cent increase.
 
 
HFI Chief Executive Natalie Elphicke said: “The South-East Local Enterprise Partnership very much deserve to be the first of their kind to be awarded Housing Business Ready status. Their excellent contributions to the Housing Business Ready programme has demonstrated their appetite for working closely with businesses and councils to ensure economic growth and housing stability for their region.”
 
SELEP Chairman, Christian Brodie said:  “There is significant pressure in our area to deliver housing, with pressures from London and a growing population. We recognised the need to act and partnering with the HFi was the ideal step.
 
“The delivery of the programme across all three counties of the LEP helps to support the economic growth and competitiveness of our region. We want to deliver good quality housing which creates communities within which people want to live and which can attract the skilled and experienced employees our businesses need.” 

 www.southeastlep.com