Unlocking a southern powerhouse of revitalised towns, 200,000 new homes, £24bn GVA, and supporting 140,000 new jobs.
With the active participation of:
Support and analysis from:
SNG is one of the largest stock-holding housing associations in the UK with 84,000 homes across Southern England. We are also the second-largest housing association developer in the country: our £6.2 billion investment programme will deliver 25,000 new homes over the next decade, and our recent £400m bond issuance was nearly four times oversubscribed. We are more than just a house builder: our sectorleading, co-designed Homes and Place Standard demonstrates our commitment to place-based, regenerative development.
Southern England’s towns have the potential to offer affordable, green, and vibrant places to live, drive regional economic growth, address the challenges existing residents face, and provide more affordable housing for young talent from London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Our analysis shows the potential to provide 200,000 new homes, generate £24bn of Gross Value Added (GVA) and support 140,000 new jobs.
However, many towns are not performing optimally, and too many of our customers struggle to thrive even with a good home - unable to access stable employment and access essential services. Traditional town centres are declining, while new developments fail to enhance their vitality. An engrained focus on roads and car parking limits housing density, reduces development viability and makes good quality place making very difficult.
Government is driving through a huge shake up in its approach to strategic place leadership and development. In response, the private sector, investors and housing associations must now work differently with government to deliver, bringing investment at scale and the skills necessary to create and steward great places across the entire asset cycle.
SNG has created this prospectus in dialogue with a group of partners. Together we have unparalleled experience across the lifecycle of places, from initiation to delivery and stewardship, informed by our successful track-record of working with communities through complex transformational change.
This prospectus sets out our analysis of the opportunity that the southern powerhouse offers and of the barriers to delivering that potential. We then describe a new model of public-private working, bringing together a number of tried and tested approaches. This work is expensive, complex, and longterm, so it is vital to manage risk in a sequenced and structured manner to maximise private investment and make best use of scarce government resource.
We ask that government now work alongside us and others, actively participating in our work to further develop and test our ideas, with a view to then demonstrating proof of concept at pace in three towns in the proposed Hampshire and Solent County Combined Authority, and Slough - securing planning consents within this parliamentary term.
Mark Washer CEO, SNG
Mark Washer CEO SNG
Case for change
The southern region of England, stretching from London’s commuter towns to Bristol and the south coast, is a crucial economic hub contributing 30% of England’s GVA. Despite its economic strength, the region is not performing optimally, with increasing pockets of deprivation, ageing housing estates, and declining town centres.
Development activity is mainly in the form of edge of town greenfield extensions where viability can be achieved and the complexity of land assembly is absent, but these developments tend to look outwards to the national road network. As such they often contribute little to existing towns, further weakening their economic vitality, entrenching car dependency and low-density patterns of development, and undermining local communities’ support for new housing.
A transformative vision
To address these issues, a new vision is proposed: transforming the southern region into a ‘southern powerhouse’ of revitalised towns. This vision is to create a network of ‘New Towns in Old Towns’ with thriving town centres linked through sustainable transport to new homes replacing poor quality postwar housing estates, and on to new town extensions seamlessly integrated into existing places.
The transformation of these towns will address the challenges experienced by existing residents, offer affordable housing to young talent and families priced out of London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and support older people to maintain autonomy
and access to services. It means providing good amenities, connectivity and access to spaces for small businesses to grow. It means delivering 200,000 new homes, generating £24bn in GVA, and supporting an estimated 140,000 new jobs, while reducing public service costs and increasing local tax revenues.
A new model of public-private partnership
Government is driving through a huge shake-up in its approach to strategic place leadership and development. In response, the private sector must now work differently with government at all levels to deliver great places, economic growth and new homes, bringing investment at scale and the necessary skills across the entire asset cycle. To do this, we propose a Sustainable Place Partnership model (see 1), with three key components and a structured five stage process of partnership building (see 2), designed to enable the partnership to navigate from initiation to delivery within a four-year period.
What we need from government
SNG and our partners want to take this ambitious proposition forward to proof-of-concept and delivery within the next few years. To enable this work, we have five asks for government (see 3) to assist us to refine and test our ideas, and then to gear up to delivery, achieving planning consents within this parliamentary term - establishing a model and way of working that others could follow in Southern England and beyond.
1. Sustainable Place Partnership model
• Regional Investment Vehicle (RIV): a full asset life public-private partnership to drive long-term economic growth and socioeconomic impact, operating across a number of towns. Starting in three towns and growing.
• Town partnership: a local partnership to drive the vision, multi-agency working, planning, land assembly.
• Town Development Fund: a revolving and pooled fund which enables early and ongoing investment in infrastructure and socioeconomic interventions.
3. Our ask is that government work with us at pace to:
• Progress a strategic financial business case across three towns
• Identify better practice in the coordinated use of planning and Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) powers
• Scope and fund a rapid transport assessment for Hampshire and the Solent
• Identify a named senior lead to work with us and contacts in the key government departments and agencies
• Agree how, and where, the next stage of work will be taken forward with Discovery Phases in three towns.
2. A structured process of partnership building
• Town Preparation (1-3 months): The local council compiles an information pack, with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and key sites, along with socio-economic data and community views.
• Rapid Delivery Assessment (4-6 months): The RIV assesses the town’s opportunities, viability, and potential for land assembly and cross-subsidy.
• Discovery Phase (18 months): An agreement is signed, and a Town Partnership is formed to develop a shared Place Vision, strategic spatial plans, and a Place Journey.
• Catalyst Phase (1-5 years): Smaller impactful projects begin, the Town Development Fund established, and land assembly and planning progressed on larger projects.
• Delivery at Scale and Stewardship (3-30 years): Larger projects begin, building on earlier successes, with additional investments and a sustainable stewardship model for the Town Development Fund.
The case for change
A Southern Powerhouse of revitalised towns
The southern region of England is key to national economic and housing delivery growth.
The southern region of England, stretching from London’s commuter towns across to Bristol and down to the south coast, is economically important. Discounting inner London, this region - where SNG manages over 84,000 homesaccounts for 30% of England’s GVA and will see job creation above the national average to 2027.
The building blocks of economic prosperity are good –including major employers, leading universities, highly productive firms, high levels of research and innovation, and good national transport infrastructure, particularly links into the London labour market.
These strong enabling conditions mean that there is significant economic opportunity to be unlocked through delivering new housing. To this end, the government has already identified this area as key to its mission in delivering house building numbers, as reflected in the new housing targets.
There is the firm expectation that towns such as Slough, Basingstoke, Farnborough, Swindon and Andover will build more homes. These must include more genuinely affordable homes, and market homes at different price points –the bedrock for individual social mobility and access to opportunity – in order to relieve the binding constraint on the effective functioning of regional labour markets so that our businesses can grow.
But the region is not performing optimally, and its social, economic and urban fabric is reaching a tipping point. The current approach to development is exacerbating rather than addressing these problems.
This region lacks a major urban centre or primary business sector and is not seen as an economic geography with its own identity, needs and opportunities - despite its central importance to the UK economy. It is dominated by small and medium sized towns with post-war housing estates and town centre commercial areas which are reaching a tipping point in terms of their built form and commercial health, with high streets experiencing increasing levels of voids.
The original prospectus of many of these expansion towns, based on offering opportunities to live and work in a nurturing environment, is not delivering for their communities any more. Pockets of social deprivation, long-term ill-health and high unemployment are becoming entrenched alongside more affluent areas, placing a disproportionate strain on public services. Poor interregional connections combined with poor local bus services and minimal active travel infrastructure do not support thriving town centres or enable those without cars to access employment, educational, health, cultural or environmental opportunities.
These town centres need more residents and have the potential for large numbers of new homes, but such town centre redevelopment suffers from complex and costly land assembly and struggles to achieve viability or to secure the private investment and public services they need. Aging housing estates need regeneration and provide the opportunity for densification but are challenging to bring forward due to the need to re-house existing residents, on top of the challenges of broader land assembly and viability.
New residential developments are mainly edge of town extensions and greenfield estates where viability is strongest, but these tend to look outwards, connecting directly to the national road network and contributing nothing to existing places. This further weakens the economic vitality of town centres and entrenches car dependency and low-density patterns of development through excessive parking requirements. This dysfunctional relationship between greenfield, brownfield and town centre development is hollowing out towns, wasting their economic potential, segregating communities and limiting the numbers of homes coming forward.
This ‘doughnut’ pattern of development is illustrated in Figure 1
Business as usual
1
Unreliable, slow, meandering bus routes
People use cars even for small trips while those without cars cannot access opportunities or amenities. Local bus services literally go round the houses, extending travel times and lowering service frequency and reliability.
Overdependence on car access to the town centre and car parks
The combination of a ring road, multi storey car parks and surface backlot parking that surround town centres combine to restrict other ways to access and skew a healthy balance in favour of the car.
Dysfunction and separation of uses
The invention and arrival of the large monolithic retail centre has imposed itself on the older town structure, providing a monocultural environment to the detriment of residential and cultural uses and the scale of the old town fabric.
Underuse of land for residential use
Car parking demand in all locations limit density and numbers of homes that can be built, compound viability challenges of town centre and brownfield development, and limit ability to rebalance the economy and livelihood of the town centres.
Figure
With ambition, focus, and partnership, we can create a high-performing southern powerhouse of New Towns in Old Towns—an interconnected set of vibrant towns with thriving high streets, regenerated post-war housing, and new urban extensions. These towns will address the challenges faced by their existing communities and provide high quality housing for young workers priced out of London, Oxford, and Cambridge. They will offer families access to good amenities, nature, culture and connectivity to the London labour market, while also supporting older people to maintain autonomy and access services. They will provide affordable spaces for small businesses to grow and for established companies to house their workers and talent.
Our analysis shows that, with a strategic focus on place-making, we can deliver well designed and connected ‘New Towns in Old Towns’, bringing forward brownfield development opportunities within town centres and across post-war housing estates, and in new greenfield extensions. With sustainable transport to unlock greater housing density and create more cross subsidy, our analysis suggests we can deliver 200,000 new homes, £24bn in GVA and support 140,000 new jobs, with higher associated tax revenues. Creating better opportunities for residents facing deprivation and improving access to employment for young people will reduce local public service costs, such as health and police, and help bring diverse communities together.
This new strategic approach to place-focused development is set out in Figure 2
Business as usual will not realise these opportunities at pace. We need government and the private sector to work differently together.
Too many projects are not progressed from initial concepts due to complexity, the high costs of land assembly and viability pressures. Local opposition to development and the difficulties of co-ordinating complementary investments in a timely manner leave communities disconnected.
Local government capacity and capability has been reduced significantly and is about to undergo a new transformation under the devolution agenda. The structural change proposed in the English Devolution White Paper is much needed but does add to already strained capacity in the short and medium term.
The treatment of public assets typically prioritises short-term financial goals rather than considering their long-term economic or regeneration value. The procurement of complex projects is hugely costly and time intensive, and often doesn’t yield large enough positive outcomes for the procuring authority, private sector or communities.
The private sector is dominated by a focus on shortterm realisation of sales or rental values, leading to low density greenfield development with poor local transport links. Supply chain capacity is challenging, from a lack of experienced place developers through to shortages in construction and trades workers.
Addressing these constraints and realising the opportunity of the southern powerhouse of towns requires a different approach.
We are proposing a new place-based model – a Sustainable Place Partnership - which brings together the public and private sector in a different way This partnership can leverage in private capital, co-ordinate development across green, brown and town zones, and build community support for regeneration.
It is a proposition that has been designed to work now and to evolve with local structures through devolution and local government reorganisation, bringing together tried and tested good practice and maximising the positive impact of changes being brought by government.
Whilst this model would be applicable in many places with many different partners, it is particularly applicable to the economic and spatial condition of the towns of southern England, facilitating the delivery of a southern powerhouse.
Our Vision
Public transport improvements
More direct rapid bus and bike network between the town centre, station, suburban estates and new edge of town residential developments, with bus lanes and preferential traffic controls, will provide a reliable, frequent and efficient alternative to using the car, and increase the productivity of land.
Development of local centres with renewal and higher density housing
The introduction of many more new homes in the town centre, together with the rapid bus and bike routes, will provide necessary footfall and numbers to support retail, cultural and community offers, also providing rehousing opportunities for post-war housing estates.
Development of regeneration coupled to any greenfield housing proposals
The easy win edge of town residential developments would be linked to the delivery of selected higher density residential infill town centre sites and postwar estates so that the repairs and rebalancing of the centre, and rehousing of residents in poor quality post war housing, are delivered concurrently.
Improve the quantum of dwellings per hectare [dph]
Introducing rapid bike and bus routes, and aligning different forms of development, will enable homes to be built at greater density in all parts of the town, improving the dph from 25 to 60 for greenfield development, 30 to 60 for brownfield development and 60 to 100 for town centre developments.
Our offer A Sustainable Place Partnership
A Sustainable Place Partnership
Government is driving through a huge shake-up in its approach to strategic place leadership through devolution and local government reorganisation, together with delivery focused reforms, including the creation of Locally Led Development Corporations and changes to the planning system. For these reforms to bring the benefits they are designed to do - for our communities, places and economy - the private sector also needs to work differently.
Our Sustainable Place Partnership model is a new approach to the public and the private sector working together to drive delivery of great places and align interests for long-term stewardship, alongside emerging government structures. This is a model that complements the proposed Hampshire and the Solent County Combined Authority and can support the delivery of housing whilst this structure is being mobilised. The Sustainable Place Partnership model addresses five key challenges:
Challenge 1: Town Vitality
Our offer: A strategic approach that links development across our towns, reversing the ‘doughnut’ pattern of urban degradation, to create revitalised well-designed, well-connected towns, and harnessing cross-subsidy to maximise housing and economic growth.
• A coordinated approach with a focus on sustainable transport that unites greenfield and brownfield developments with town centre regeneration in a single development programme, reviving declining town centres and legacy commercial assets alongside providing greater numbers of homes than would otherwise be realised.
• Maximising cross subsidy from greenfield development, rapidly rehousing people living in ageing post-war housing estates and improving place making.
• Prioritising and incentivising investment in local transport to enable higher density development to be achieved sustainably, and the repurposing of town centre car parks.
Challenge 2: Community Support for Change
Our offer: The model enables greater trust to be established with communities, redefining relationships and investing early for socioeconomic and cultural impact.
• Rapid development of a Place Vision and Place Journey – an action plan for change where it matters to local people, alongside work to bring about longerterm transformation.
• A local fund which is put in place early, builds over time, and offers the ability to first test, then grow the scale and ambition of investment projects, demonstrating with transparency the tangible benefits of change and development.
• Re-establishing the link between new homes and an improved cultural and community offer, more cohesive communities, and of opportunity to improve life chances - enabling towns to become more confident, resilient and attractive.
Challenge 3: Delivery Leadership and Resource
Our offer: A core master-developer-operator partnership with a long-term view of value and capacity, operating across several towns in collaboration with local leaders.
• Aligning partners’ focus around a shared interest in long-term value creation.
• Creating a concentration of capacity and skilled leadership able to navigate the complex regeneration landscape, always cognisant of place-based challenges and the different needs of varied stakeholders.
• A consolidated delivery and operating model that will reduce costs, improve efficiencies, speed up delivery timescales and improve the quality of asset management and stewardship. By working consistently together, partners can avoid reinventing the wheel on a project by project basis.
Challenge 4: Development Viability
Our offer: Investment with scale, enabling smart, innovative use of public and private funding, to resolve financial viability blocks and ensure rapid and consistent delivery.
• Bringing together public and private investment at scale across several towns, aligning the balance sheets of those with assets under management, and making smarter use of available government funding and new financial mechanisms to leverage private investment.
• Bringing together those with track-records across the asset life-cycle, together with aligned institutional investors, will enable us to structure funds more effectively and give confidence to those investing in the early stages.
• Structuring a long-term vehicle to capitalise on initial subsidy to create long term value over the asset life cycle, reducing the need for subsidy over time through to an eventual zero subsidy sustainable investment vehicle, with scale and asynchronistic delivery which allow for cross subsidy between income streams and complementary developments.
Challenge 5: Sustainable Transport
Our offer: A commitment to end-of-journey sustainable transport, to achieve both housing supply and net-zero ambitions, and increase the viability and impact of investment in regional rail infrastructure.
• Facilitating the relationships necessary to change market norms around the provision of car parking spaces to increase the production capacity of scarce land and embed behavioural change.
• Increasing the economic impact of smaller changes in regional rail through a focus on ‘end-of-journey’ sustainable transport as part of place-making.
These five challenges are summarised in Figure 3
‘Doughnut’ development shrinking retail, end of life post-war housing estates, and disassociated new greenfield development leads to a vicious circle of declining town vitality.
Social fabric is declining with poor pride in place and pockets of deprivation. Residents do not support development as it is not felt to be addressing their issues.
A lack of resource, skills and capacity threatens the ability for towns to deliver against national missions of new housing and economic growth.
Development viability is a huge challenge, with lengthy and risky development time period and costly land assembly, and no cross subsidy.
Those without cars cannot access good jobs, lower housing densities achieved due to car parking allocations and regional economy undermined by poor inter-regional links.
Co-ordinating the delivery of ‘greenbrown-town’ development across a town enables greater focus on the centre and viable placebased transformation.
Tailored place journey engages community and creates local social and cultural capital, and early impact, making support for further interventions more likely.
Structured collaboration between local leaders and long-term actors can combine the capacity and operating model to improve stewardship and reduce costs.
A new way of working across the asset life and in early stageswith cross subsidy, and private and public investment at scale, enabled by new financial mechanisms.
Reliable rail and bus options that improve links into towns and between areas, combined with improving walking and cycling links, will increase housing numbers.
Renewed, mixeduse cohesive towns that act as engines of economic growth and have long-term resilience and value.
Towns with unique culture, events and access to facilities, which builds pride and attracts new entrants.
New capacity that can deliver on community needs, reducing costs and complexity, and demonstrating impact.
Viability challenges can be better overcome, with rapid and consistent delivery across numerous towns. Healthier communities, climate resilience, increased regional economic performance and more new homes.
Figure 3: Challenges and proposition
Sustainable Place Partnership: Three Core Components
The model brings together a range of practices and mechanisms that have been demonstrated to work and evolves them in response to the changes that government is making:
Component 1: Regional Investment Vehicle (RIV)
This investment partnership would unite SNG with a small group of partners skilled in funding, development and commercial asset management, along with a large strategic governmental body such as Homes England or a Combined Authority. Initially focused on three pilot towns, the aim would be to expand the programme as proof of concept is further established. The partnership would have a regional focus, becoming a key agent of change within a combined authority, driving long-term economic growth and spatial transformation with visible socio-economic impact for communities.
Case study 1: English Cities Partnership
A development company set up by Homes England, Legal and General and Muse Developments. With initial investment of £100m, and then increased to £200m, the fund is on track to deliver five mixed use schemes in English cities with a total value of £1.6 bn. The company partners with councils, regional authorities and other public sector organisations to transform major sites, deliver mixed-use, residential-led schemes, and create inspiring new places.
Case study 2: Cambridge Investment Partnership
An equal partnership between Cambridge City Council and Hill Investment Partnerships, to provide high-quality brand new council homes and market sale homes, commercial and community facilities. As part of the £70m Cambridgeshire and Peterborough devolution grant, the partnership achieved its first start on site on council land within 18 months, and third party land in two years, and within five years had 1,700 homes delivered or in planning. The partnership targets 5% of workforce from the local community.
Component 2: Town Partnership
In each town where the RIV operates, a Town Partnership would provide local leadership and expertise. At its core would be a small agile Steering Group, initially led by the Council and the RIV, to drive socio-economic research and develop a shared Place Vision and Place Journey. As the Place Journey progresses, incrementally building the local confidence and trust, it would expand to include key local partners for early and long-term impact. The partnership would facilitate the assembly of land and opportunities across green-brown and town and align statutory planning and CPO powers. Over time, the Town Partnership may evolve into a Locally Led Development Corporation (LLDC) or become aligned with an LLDC with a larger area of activity.
Case study 1: Sovereign Hill Partnership (SHP)
A regeneration focused partnership between SNG and The Hill Group, is bringing forward the largest suburban regeneration project in England in Basingstoke –174Ha, 4,600 existing homes. The SHP has established partnership working arrangements with both local councils, to drive forward long-term change with the necessary powers, and bring immediate change through targeted social investment with a range of other local agencies. Circa 300 new homes are now being brought forward for planning, ahead of longer-term mixed use phases.
Case study 2: Cambridge Growth Company
The Cambridge Growth Company brings together local and national government efforts to accelerate high quality development across Greater Cambridge, utilising a variety of tools such as advance land purchases, equity investments, and the land assembly powers of its constituent partners. Whilst currently in an emerging form, it is already working with multiple public and private bodies, and has the potential to evolve into a full Development Corporation. The partners include local leaders, with representatives of the academic, innovation and infrastructure sectors.
Component 3: Town Development Fund
In each town where the RIV operates, a Town Development Fund would be established to provide a visible source of investment in local regeneration. Initially small and focused on early projects identified in the Place Journey, over time it would grow, providing greater investment in infrastructure, socio-economic and placemaking interventions, realising genuine impact for local people and continuing to build confidence with communities and stakeholders. Initial seed funding would be repaid through developer contributions, including a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)-style tariff. The fund would eventually become revolving and include operational revenue streams, such as energy generation or retained business rates. This fund would test and grow new and improved offers, giving communities a clear sense of the benefits of development and ensuring good stewardship through operational funding of local assets and services. The relationship between these components is set out in Figure 4 and summarised on page 21.
The rest of this section discusses each of the three components in more detail, and provides a process map for how work would be initiated and taken forward in a particular town.
Case study 1: The Milton Keynes model
As the last and largest of the post-war New Towns, Milton Keynes pioneered several innovations in the governance, financing and stewardship of development. The Milton Keynes Development Partnership owns and develops land assets that were transferred from Homes England, on behalf of the Council. Alongside this, the Milton Keynes Community Foundation and the related MK New Communities Fund invests funding into social and community projects in the new communities which are being created. The fund supports enabling infrastructure, bringing essential development forward and de-risking projects, initial contributions enabled forward funding, repaid out of the Tariff.
Case study 2: Revolving Infrastructure Funds
Revolving Infrastructure Funds were successfully utilised by the Regional Development Agencies to help recycle the proceeds of growth back into infrastructure needed to support further development. Similar funds have been subsequently taken forward by local authorities such as Cornwall, Bexley and Bath and North East Somerset. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has established a £1.2bn Infrastructure Fund with an ‘earn back’ mechanism of up to £30m per annum over 30 years to be paid back by the Treasury against increases in Gross Value Added.
SNG or other HA.
Commercial asset manager.
Developer.
Homes England or Combined Authority.
Institutional investor(s).
Socialvalue&Stewardship
Local Authority(s).
Major local landowners, including SNG.
Broader working groups to tackle key local issues, such as employers, educational institutions, community groups and charities, and other public agencies.
Critical mass of technical and leadership resource.
Land ownership – existing and through acquisition.
Financial capacity, with long-term balance sheets.
Programmatic government funding and other financial mechanisms.
Master-developer able to fund, develop and operate.
Lead process of transformation, creating Vision, long-term spatial masterplan and place journey.
Delivering development in response to the vision and the Local Plan(s).
Managing delivery by other developers and actors, as appropriate.
RIV and LA land and/or resource input as appropriate to the relevant project/scheme.
Communications and engagement input / ownership of regeneration narrative.
Local leadership and resource to drive planning and CPO.
Local knowledge and capacity to prepare Place Visions and Place Journeys.
Political oversight and leadership to drive the Vision, long-term masterplan and place journey.
Establish local partnership working groups to tackle particular issues in Place Journey – such as community safety, employment and skills.
Timely planning input and consents – including preparation of Local Development Orders, CPOs and Highways as appropriate.
Set-up of Town Development Fund and assembly of funding, to deliver Place Journey interventions.
Overseen by Town Partnership.
The Regional Investment Vehicle could help provide management function, or this can sit with the Town Partnership or Local Authority.
Public funding via an initial capital grant/loan/RIF to seed fund, plus project-specific funding as appropriate.
Aligned social value investment from the RIV and other major local business.
CIL-style tariff funding streams, recycled and grown over time with other developer contributions together such as S106, and CIL.
Other ongoing sources of funding, such as energy microgrid profit share and data trusts from place based data, and potentially appropriate service charges and other income streams.
Ready pipeline of funding to support early interventions determined by the agreed vision, and set out in the Place Journey, ensuring economic and social infrastructure is delivered.
Visible and transparent demonstration of the scale of benefit of growth and change, and the benefits for local communities.
Ensuring local communities and stakeholders not only feel the impact of the interventions but feel enfranchised by them.
Figure 4: Sustainable Place Partnership
Table 1: Sustainable Place Partnership – three components
Component 1: The Regional Investment Vehicle
This investment partnership would bring SNG together with a small group of partners with complementary skills in commercial asset management and development, together with a large strategic governmental body, either Homes England or a Combined Authority. The vehicle would start with three towns, but with the aim and intention to grow the capacity and programme across other towns as the track record is established. The vehicle would have a regional focus and become a key agent of change within a combined authority geography. It would drive economic growth and major spatial change in the long-term, founded on early, visible initiatives and socio-economic impact for communities.
The Regeneration Investment Vehicle will:
• undertake a full master-developer (fund/develop/ operate) role with a critical mass of leadership and resource - operating across a portfolio of projects in and around towns, creating a masterplan for delivery, responding to the vision and aligning with the evolution of the Local Plan. With the skills, capacity and experience to work with the public sector to navigate the full lifecycle of funding, land assembly, planning, delivery and stewardship/asset management and bringing commercial and delivery rigour into projects from the beginning.
• act as a steward of place from the outset, aligned with the Town Partnership to create early impact following the rapid completion of a shared Place Vision and Place Journey. Able to align initiatives which test approaches and offers whilst delivering meaningful social value with seed funding to make early, visible change. Development and project delivery skill-set will be balanced with in-depth knowledge of sustainable asset management and stewardship.
• be or become a local landowner such that it is able to use its development and asset management skills from the outset to drive value and change, as well as facilitate longterm land assembly necessitated by the longer-term spatial ambitions.
• leverage institutional investment at scale as a result of the scale of the activity of this vehicle together with the long-term balance sheets of a range of the partners. The vehicle would act as a core partner for institutional investors, providing the necessary de-risking skills and experience to establish investment with risk appetites that work.
• establish development project Special Purpose Vehicles to deliver individual projects at the local level and provide appropriate returns to the RIV and any other investors (such as the relevant local authority where it has land invested), through which other partners may be mobilised with particular expertise and investment capability.
• have a special status to enable direct award. By virtue of its land ownership and the inclusion of the public sector in this body, this vehicle would have the special status that would enable authorities to partner directly with the vehicle.
Component 2: The Town Partnership
In each of the towns where the RIV operates, there would be a Town Partnership, providing local leadership and knowledge. The Town Partnership would have at its core a small Steering Group, comprising the Council and the RIV initially, to drive early research and vision development. It would construct its own Place Journey, plotting the programme for the transformation of the identified place in all its facets - physical, economic, cultural, educational, health - and in doing so, establish the key local partnership required to bring both early impact and longer-term change.
Over time, this would also provide the means for aligning the statutory planning function and use of CPO and any highways order powers. In the event that a Locally Led Development Corporation (LLDC) is created, then this would immediately become a core part of this partnership. This partnership itself could evolve itself into a formal company and in time become an LLDC itself, covering one or multiple towns, depending on local circumstances.
The Town Partnerships would:
• provide local strategic and political leadership for change working in a focused and rapid manner with the RIV to create a shared Place Vision and Place Journey, based on solid local data and research as well as community and stakeholder engagement, in order to facilitate early impact.
• convene key local working groups focused on specific projects and themes to drive forward early stage interventions and long-term regeneration through the Place Journey and community action. Groups would include local higher and further education sectors, community groups and charities, local business, and public bodies where appropriate. Partnerships would also work with the RIV to navigate the inevitable tensions and challenges of long-term change.
• facilitate the pooling of land across ‘green-browntown’ opportunities through its influence, powers and existing landholdings. With a commitment to facilitating additional land to be taken forward on the basis of regeneration value and deferred payments.
• use its housing powers and functions to prioritise the rapid re-housing of residents who are living in poor quality housing, to enable better quality and more homes to be delivered, and the lives of residents to be improved rapidly.
• drive communication and engagement with residents ensuring a strong community voice, flow of information and dialogue about projects and the long-term transformation of the town. This will include co-design of the individual Place Journeys with communities and stakeholders at an early stage, and ongoing processes which build-in agency for local people.
• proactively support local planning and use of CPO and highways orders powers where needed focusing on necessary land assembly and appropriate preplanning dialogue, enabling a smooth transition from vision to masterplan to specific planning consents and development. This may include using Article 4 directions
(restricting national permitted development rights that might have a deleterious effect on regeneration masterplans) and Local Development Orders (providing local permitted development rights) to set the planning framework for areas, or requesting government to issue Special Development Orders where appropriate. Such tools will particularly help in instances where more typical Local Plan allocations and/or planning application routes will not provide sufficiently rapid or certain routes to development.
Component 3: Town Development Funds
Each town in which the RIV operated would have its own Town Development Fund. This is designed to be a revolving investment fund which would start small as a means to fund early impact projects identified through the Place Journey, but over time would be a conduit for much greater investment, including in local infrastructure, as well as ongoing socio-economic or placemaking interventions. The Fund would need some initial seed funding, but would then be self-sustaining through the accruals of developer contributions and the proceeds of growth including potentially, an element of CIL-style tariff, local retention of business rates and use of Regional Infrastructure Funds administered by the Town Development Fund.
The Town Development Fund would:
• invest in the ‘software’ for socio-economic change and placemaking with a structure which enables both revenue and capital investment, and captures genuine impacts for people and place.
• mobilise potential place-based revenuegenerating opportunities from microgrid energy profit share, place-based data trusts, consumer services and advertising, as well as local retention of business rates, such that long-term stewardship and funding for social capital can be assured.
• enable aligned social impact investment from the RIV and other large local businesses such that impact is maximised.
• provide local transparency – its existence being a visible and transparent means of communities understanding the benefits of change and development. Over time, with the addition of operational funding streams, the Fund would become a means of safeguarding good stewardship.
• build local agency through targeted investments identified in the Place Journey, to ensure local communities and stakeholders grow their sense of enfranchisement and involvement in the process and build local capacities to become long-term custodians of the place.
Sustainable Place Partnership: A Process Map
All partners, both private and public, interested in working within a Sustainable Place Partnership will need a clear, incremental process to manage risk and costs. This will also help to test the abilities of those involved to establish and deepen partnership working and strategic alignment through the challenges of delivery. To this end, we propose a structured process, which is summarised in Figure 5 and set out below.
Co-designed Vision and Ambitionsdata and primary research led.
Early impact socio-economic interventions and partnership working commences.
Masterplan and Place Journey prepared.
Land assembly strategy agreed.
Early Delivery Phase (1 - 2 years)
RIV and Town agree more detailed MoU.
Early win development pipeline taken forward through planning.
Discovery Phase work built into Local Planning framework.
Locations where CPO will be used if necessary made public.
Local impact and partnership work continue.
Sustainable transport interventions commence.
Town Fund established.
Legal structure: None required.
Legal structure: Could be an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), or an initial exclusivity agreement.
Finance:
Local authority funds work at risk, low cost work.
Finance: RIV partners fund work at risk, largely using in-house resources.
Legal structure: Formal agreement required, could be a deeper exclusivity, option or conditional sale, or a town-specific investment partnership.
Finance: RIV partners and LA share costs, with some underwriting of RIV supply chain costs if project doesn’t proceed.
Legal structure: Individual project SPVs start to be formed, with appropriate contractual form. Likely extension of other agreements, such as options or conditional sale.
Finance:
Town Fund, RIV and Institutional investment, structured for greatest efficiency and appropriate risk.
Delivery at scale (2-30 years)
Sequence of projects taken forward.
Other partners mobilised, through appropriate project vehicles.
Stewardship and asset management alongside development.
Mobilisation of place based long-term revenue.
Step 1: Town Preparation
The local authority would prepare a structured information pack, including a summary of ambitions, a SWOT analysis for the town, details of potential green, brown, and town sites, any existing masterplanning work, and socio-economic data. This process may take up to three months.
Step 2: Rapid Delivery Assessment
The RIV would carry out a rapid assessment using the provided data, along with market advice from local agents across various asset classes. This allows the RIV to conduct financial modelling to identify viability issues and determine where cross-subsidy and land assembly are most needed. This process may take four to six months. The work could be conducted under a light-touch MoU or exclusivity agreement, where all parties cover their own costs. This is similar to a private-sector soft market testing process.
Step 3: Discovery Phase
When the RIV and local government agree to proceed, a formal agreement would be signed, and the Town Partnership Steering Group would be established. The phase begins with a full socio-economic assessment supported by the RIV, informing the Town Partnership, which will collaborate with the community and stakeholders to develop a Place Vision and related ambitions. This vision will underpin a Spatial Masterplan and a Place Journey, which outlines a structured sequence of interventions, from meanwhile uses to early-stage delivery, and from programmatic projects to civic governance frameworks. This approach fosters placemaking and long-term efforts to realise the masterplan.
Step 4: Early Delivery Phase
The Discovery Phase would identify smaller-scale development projects that can proceed quickly within the existing planning framework. These, along with broader projects in the Place Journey, will demonstrate change to partners and the local community.
Early development could focus on land owned by the public sector or RIV, or acquired without a CPO. At this point, public sector land transfers would require more formality, with conditional sales or options agreements to ensure clarity and demonstrate regeneration benefits. A more extensive partnership agreement would also be needed, possibly a deeper MoU or the establishment of a town-specific investment partnership.
The Town Development Fund would be created to continue the local impact investment outlined in the Place Journey. Over time, the scale of this investment will increase, with priority given to visible sustainable travel interventions to encourage behaviour changes. These changes could reduce the need for car parking and increase density and productivity in the town.
Legal structure: As for previous stage, but scale of investment increases.
The planning strategy for approvals will be established, varying by location. It might involve the Local Plan process, but these could take three years even under current reforms. If timescales don’t align (e.g., if a Local Plan is already advanced or recently adopted), alternative routes such as brownfield passports, speculative planning applications, development corporations, Local Development Orders, or Special Development Orders would be explored. The Local Authority may also adopt the spatial masterplan as a Supplementary Plan.
This phase will be co-funded by the public sector and the RIV. The RIV may seek underwriting of supply chain costs.
For the Local Authority, these costs would align with typical budget requirements for a major procurement exercise, but collaborating with the RIV provides leadership and resources. This phase is expected to last about 18 months.
During this phase, the long-term spatial plan developed in the Discovery Phase would be refined for implementable planning permissions, in line with the planning strategy. The appropriate planning tools would be chosen based on the types and scales of development involved. For small projects, a brownfield passport or local development order may be suitable, while a Supplementary Plan with an outline planning application could support larger developments. Integration with a new local plan will be considered, subject to timescales. Targeted land assembly may begin, including the redevelopment of poor-quality or outdated affordable housing. This phase is expected to take one to five years.
Step 5: Delivery at Scale and Stewardship
By this stage, larger-scale redevelopment and infrastructure investment would begin or be near commencement. A CPO inquiry may be necessary to enable the land assembly required for the project.
As development progresses and early projects reach occupation, the focus will shift to implementing a sustainable stewardship model. This model ensures local revenue streams, feeding into the Town Development Fund to support ongoing community investment and long-term place stewardship.
The RIV will work to engage additional investor partners with diverse commercial products, such as older persons’ accommodation, build-to-rent, and student housing, to accelerate delivery and mobilise more investment. This phase would likely span a 30-year time horizon.
Finance: As for previous stage, but scale of investment increases.
Figure 5: Process map
Town preparation (3 months)
Working with government
Our offer
We know that the towns and cities across the south of England have the potential to play a crucial part in delivering great places, more housing and economic growth.
We can see a compelling vision of a connected set of vibrant towns, offering an affordable place to live, with huge economic opportunities by virtue of its own connected regional economy and its relative proximity to London, Oxford and Cambridge, increased by initiatives such as East-West Rail.
These towns will be able to house the talent we need to drive growth and innovation, at price points young people and families can afford. They could be at the forefront of a lifestyle transition away from car dependency, offering proximity to the countryside, and an urban environment which is resilient in the face of climate change.
Our Sustainable Place Partnership model is designed to bring together a structure which offers deep skills and experience across the full lifecycle of delivering new and enhanced places, from project funding and initiation through to delivery, sustainable asset management and stewardship. Bringing together knowledge of how to fund, develop, build, steward and manage urban environments and work with and alongside communities through huge transformational change. A model which transforms the way that private sector investors and asset managers work together and in partnership with government.
The model has been designed to capture and utilise the best tried and tested practice and maximise the impact of the changes that are being brought in by government, including devolution, local government reorganisation, and planning reform.
Whilst this model would be applicable to many towns across southern England and beyond, with many different partners, we are keen to demonstrate it in the Hampshire, Slough and Solent Region. This is a geography where SNG and the organisations with whom we have worked to develop this model already have a significant stake, owning many homes, retail and commercial assets and employing significant numbers of staff and supply chain providers.
Our collective ask of government is to work with us, at pace, to further develop, refine and test our model, and in particular to:
1. 2.
Develop a strategic financial business case across three towns in the region.
The purpose of this would be to work through how we can best target the use of government funding and other financial mechanisms, to maximise private sector investment. We would work with central government and three local authorities in the intended Hampshire and Solent Mayoral Combined County Authority and Slough areas to build and refine the financial case. We would explore government contributions such as:
• consideration of the availability of government backed guarantees for the RIV to draw down from Homes England and/or the National Wealth Fund for specific projects (subject to appropriate criteria being met);
• consideration of Revolving Infrastructure Funds for schemes the RIV can help deliver;
• consideration of grant funding, with and without clawback as necessary and appropriate to the relevant projects;
• capacity funding for studies of the opportunities and constraints in the relevant town and city centres (as highlighted below).
Government involvement will give confidence to private sector project funders, investors and developers as well as local authorities that national government is prepared to utilise the tools at its disposal to help unlock projects as investable opportunities, helping to resolve the ‘chicken and egg’ problems that bedevil complex developments.
Whilst the land, sales and rental values in Hampshire and Solent, and Slough, are often higher than many other parts of England, the development economics, particularly around apartments, are challenging. However, unlocking strategic development with innovative and flexible finance offers the potential to reduce the overall proportion of public subsidy required over the long term, increasing the Value For Money of public investment.
Update guidance in the coordinated use of planning and CPO powers to enable greater pace and certainty.
Land assembly is a significant blocker to town transformation. More detailed consideration of how planning and CPO powers can be coordinated by authorities would have huge benefit. In particular, the use of brown field passports in brownfield existing social housing estates and town centres could enable more rapid and certain land assembly: the CPO Guidance could be usefully updated to give stronger support to CPOs for redevelopment purposes. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will provide welcome regulatory changes in relation to land value capture but we would also like to work with government in more detail to consider how land and capital finance costs can be brought down in these towns.
3.
Scope and capacity fund a rapid sub-regional transport assessment and strategy for Hampshire and the Solent, as well as the wider southern powerhouse.
With South West Rail the first franchise to be renationalised, there is now a major opportunity to better connect towns across the south to each other and to London. The success of the London Overground where a relatively minor investment together with major rebranding demonstrates how smart, integrated transport investment can yield huge impact. Capacity funding from the Department for Transport and/or MHCLG would enable a rapid sub-regional transport assessment to identify how and where improvements can be made, and how aligned investment in ‘end-of-journey’ active travel infrastructure could deliver significant growth. We could work with the DfT, National Highways, Active Travel England, MHCLG, Homes England and the relevant regional transport bodies to scope the work required.
4.
5.
Identify a named senior lead and contacts in the key Government departments and agencies to work with us.
We would like a named senior level counterpart, tasked with working with us to take forward the work described. We suggest that a small network of senior civil servants be identified to provide assistance as we take the work forward, including from Homes England, MHCLG, National Wealth Fund, HM Treasury and DfT, to facilitate cross-departmental alignment and encourage local agencies to work with us in the pursuit of a shared ambition. To give shape to this work, we would suggest that a high-level MoU would be agreed, as a first step in making real change happen at a pace capable of achieving initial delivery within this parliament.
Build consensus on how, and where, the next stage of work would be taken forward, with Discovery Phases in three pilot towns.
We have already started conversations with towns in the Hampshire and the Solent region, and Slough. We would like to include central and regional government partners in these conversations, such that we could build consensus around which towns would be the most suitable as pilot towns, where we would move on quickly to initiating Discovery Phase work. With due regard to the regional growth plan, local authority appetite for growth, likely priority sectors, and the emerging devolution settlement.
To find out more about Sovereign Network Group please visit our website: www.sng.org.uk
