The announcement comes as part of the “Levelling Up Home Building Fund” and Homes England’s move to help build homes needed across England and encourage innovation, both in the kind of homes that are built and the way they are delivered.

The government’s housing delivery agency said in a statement it will achieve this by providing development finance to small and medium house builders and infrastructure funding to support developers, master developers and landowners.

Through the Levelling Up Home Building Fund, Homes England stated that it will continue to provide investment directly to developers, in the form of loans, and to specialist lenders. 

Loans can start from £250,000, with house builders typically borrowing between £2 million and £5 million.

According to the agency, development finance is designed to support small and medium home builders that are struggling to access development finance from the private market and to help new entrants into the housing sector, to bolster house building and diversify the market.  

“If you’re a small or medium sized house builder and are interested in applying for a development loan, you will need to have majority control of the site you plan to build on and be planning to build five or more homes,” said Homes England.

In addition to providing development loans, Homes England is keen to explore how funding from the Levelling Up Home Building Fund can be used to develop more sophisticated financial arrangements, such as lending alliances with the private sector, increasing the amount of funding that are able to provide to the housebuilding sector.

The fund also has the capacity to form joint ventures, which can support projects to regenerate town centres and revive public places, working with local councils, housing developers and others.

Through the Home Building Fund, Homes England said it will continue to provide infrastructure loans to help unlock and accelerate land for housing development.