The government has recently launched a new £3bn scheme called the Home Building Fund aimed to ‘increase the number of new homes being built in England’.

What’s especially interesting is that it’s aimed ‘particularly for small builders and innovative schemes’, says the blurb published this week.

This could include ‘community-led housing projects, serviced plots for custom and self-builders, off-site manufacturing, new entrants to the market’.

The Fund offers finance of £250,000 to £250million to people able to build five or more units for sale or rent.

While it seems this would preclude self-builders, it could benefit those seeking to build on ‘serviced plots for custom and self-builders’.

More information is available here

Meanwhile, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Communities Secretary Sajid Javid told their party conference this week that they were going to publish “a housing white paper later this year with further significant measures all helping us towards our ambitions of a million new homes by 2020".

Our view? Well, although it is good news that measures are being put in place to help more people into more homes, we can’t help thinking that to put a target of a million new homes place by 2020 seems incredibly ambitious – and risks being yet another missed new build target.