Cheyne signs second housing association deal

The Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund has partnered Bristol-based United Communities to fund 161 new homes in the city’s Southmead area, with nearly 70 per cent to be made available at sub-market rents.

The scheme will also feature what is claimed to be the UK’s first private sector rent-to-buy housing.

Shamez Alibhai, head of the Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund, said the rent-to-buy offering is aimed at getting young people onto the housing ladder “within five years”.

Public benefit investment company Bristol & Bath Regional Capital (BBRC) is also a partner on the Elderberry Walk development. Along with 1,800-home United Communities, BBRC will ensure existing residents and key workers in the area are offered first refusal to buy or rent the new homes.

The scheme, on the site of a former primary school, was announced just weeks after Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund unveiled the first homes to be made available from its first partnership with a housing association.

The Dun Works scheme at Kelham Island in Sheffield has been developed alongside South Yorkshire Housing Association. It will deliver 225 homes for rent, with 35 per cent of these for people earning less than £25,000. As with the Bristol scheme, these homes will be targeted at key workers.

The progress on these two partnerships comes after Homes England told Social Housing that its partnership with Cheyne Social Property Impact Fund’s parent company Cheyne Capital had stalled.

Gordon More, Homes England’s chief investment officer, said that the New Communities Partnership (NCP), launched in 2016 as a partnership between Cheyne, Kier Living, Lloyds Bank and Homes England’s predecessor the Homes and Communities Agency, had found “no fundable transactions”.

The lease-based model sought to build 10,000 homes using council land.

However, Mr Alibhai has hit back at suggestions the model has proven unsuccessful, claiming the 10,000-home target is still achievable.

“This is a new delivery model for councils and as such it is to be expected that the amount of time from idea to implementation will be longer than for a traditional development process,” he said.

It is understood that the partnership is in negotiations over three separate deals in the South of England, each of which could deliver around 200 rented homes.

Mr Alibhai also said the progress Cheyne has made on its partnerships with housing associations showed the council model is still viable.

“There’s a direct relationship between the NCP model and what we’re doing in Sheffield because they show we can break down the monochrome view around rental property.

“A traditional developer [on this site] would have been 100 per cent private rented sector. We want to offer as many rungs on the rental ladder as possible, such as discounted rent for people on low incomes.”