"Grow by building new homes in partnership with rural communities"
This year marked a significant stride forward in English Rural's efforts to grow and expand our capacity, evident in our most active building programme for over a decade. We successfully completed twenty affordable rural homes and initiated the construction of 63 more, all aimed at providing secure and affordable homes for low-income households. This expansion has not only advanced our commitment to improving rural livelihoods but also bolstered local economies and enhanced neighbourhoods.
We are proud to report our first successful collaboration with a Community Land Trust, a development facilitated through the continued support from Homes England as a rural investment partner.
The partnership with the Community Land Trust has been a milestone in our journey, symbolising our commitment to making affordable rural homes a reality and showing the power of collaboration in achieving strategic goals.
Our Board approved a new Development Strategy, centring on high-quality rural homes through the Rural Exceptions Site approach. The high-quality standards extend beyond design and construction to accommodate residents' needs and our environmental aspirations. This was embodied by the completion of English Rural’s first-ever ‘A’ rated homes, which demonstrate the implementation of 'fabric first' principles aimed at reducing energy consumption right from the design and build stage, whilst employing renewable energy sources to reduce carbon usage and minimise energy bills.
Our subsidiary, ER Homes Ltd, continues a small programme of open market sales, the proceeds of which are re-invested which is crucial in supporting financial viability for affordable homes. The broader tenure mix of our development programme, including social rent, shared ownership, market, discounted market, and self-build plots, caters to a wide range of needs in rural communities. ER Homes Ltd was able to contribute £168k back to support English Rural's initiatives.
Despite a less volatile operational environment for the construction sector, elevated construction costs and increasing borrowing costs have posed challenges. Accepting that historic viability metrics might not always be achievable, we nonetheless remain steadfast in pursuing our development plans to achieve strategic ambitions.
Enhanced procurement practices, programme management, and cost control have been vital in navigating this higher-cost environment. Careful modelling of these higher costs in future financial plans will be crucial to understanding our development capacity and ensuring the sustainability of our future initiatives.
…with a further 100 homes in the development pipeline.
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Most active development programme for over a decade.
Diverse programme including cross subsidy via ER Homes.
New Development Strategy agreed promoting high-quality design, build and environmental standards - first ever ‘A’ rated homes.
Partnerships secured in new areas to secure further opportunities.
New systems embedded to better manage cost management.
One of English Rural's affordable homes under construction.
>> Delivering affordable homes via the Rural Exceptions Site route continues to meet the purpose and strategic ambitions of English Rural best. This route has not become any easier, with the further loss of Rural Housing Enablers, lack of local authority planning capacity and enhanced landowner value expectations. The advocacy and influencing activity undertaken by English Rural and its partners does continue to safeguard the Rural Exceptions Site Policy and active support of the policy is more likely moving forward because of this work.
>> Although challenges around labour and material costs are now more settled, higher costs are ‘baked in’. A greater focus on better procurement and programme management can mitigate this partially, but it cannot resolve it fully. This challenge compounded by the higher cost of borrowing. Work has already begun to understand the impact on future capacity so that a sustainable development programme can be shaped around this.
