£45m Whitehall cash to help build 323 flats Funding to help tackle housing crisis in large English cities
MORE than 300 apartments to rent in Birmingham city centre will be built with the help of a new government funding deal.
Housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell has announced the investment which will support the development of 323 flats by Dandara next to the Arena Central project off Broad Street.
The funding is part of a support package for £400 million worth of development comprising 2,062 homes across three sites in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
The trio of projects will receive £45 million from the Government’s new ‘Home Building Fund’ which makes money available to help kick-start new development and housebuilding.
The development site is on the corner of Holliday Street and Suffolk Street Queensway and was once the home of the muchvaunted ‘V Building’ plan.
The origins of the 51-storey project date back to 1997 but it never came to fruition due to economic downturn, prompting Dandara to return with these latest proposals in 2014.
It will instead build an L-shaped block of two connected buildings, reaching up to 23 storeys.
Mr Barwell said: “Alongside homeownership, we’re determined to create a bigger, better private rental market to offer greater choice for tenants in a country that works for everyone.
“This is one of the largest private rental sector deals in the UK and will not only create thousands of homes for people in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester - it will create jobs and opportunities for many hundreds of people.”
Dandara is spearheading the three projects with support from the Homes and Communities Agency and HSBC whose new UK retail bank is moving to Arena Central.
It is estimated up to 1,500 new construction jobs will be created across the three projects.
Founder and chairman of Dandara Dan Tynan added: “Dandara has already built more than 2,500 properties of this type in the last ten years in the UK.
“We are now in a position to actively work with institutions, and independently, to make a sizeable contribution to this market.”