Seventeen housing associations operating in the north-east of England have built an average of 1,739 new affordable homes each year for the past four years, but with 41,000 households on the social housing waiting list, they realise they really need to build a lot more. 

This is one major reason why the providers, who own a total of 240,000 homes across the region, announced the formation of the North East Housing Partnership (NEHP) last month. 

“If we’re to continue building that number of homes each year, it would still take 24 years to plug the gap in affordable homes, Paul Fiddaman, chair of the North East Housing Partnership and CEO of Karbon Homes says, with a determined quality in his voice. “So we clearly need to up our game and deliver more affordable homes.”

Central to the NEHP’s vision is that it can deliver more affordable housing as a partnership between housing associations, the combined authority and Homes England, than any of them could alone. The approach mirrors a similar arrangement among housing partnerships in devolved authorities such as Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire.