A total of 71 lucky housing associations and their partners are enjoying a feast of sizeable two-year funding allocations from the Housing Corporation. The move away from scheme-by-scheme grant funding to working with a smaller number of preferred partners gives those partners the security and the clout to deliver new homes more efficiently. It gives partnering registered social landlords the opportunity to work alongside private housebuilders as equals, instead of, as one RSL once told me, “having to take the crumbs from Berkeley’s table”. But could the dynamic of the relationship be changed when private housebuilders become eligible to bid for social housing grant next year? Then private housebuilders could be competing with RSLs, but with the benefit of fewer rules and regulations. In truth, few private housebuilders are likely to want to bid for social housing grant, so the way is clear for RSLs to take their place alongside housebuilders in doing what matters: building affordable homes in the South-east and renewing markets in the North.

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