LiveWest reveals schemes financed by £250m fund

LiveWest, the Exeter-based housing association, has revealed details of the developments being funded by its recently-announced £250m capital raising exercise.

The group’s 24-year, 2.346% bond was issued last month through the new £1bn European Medium-Term Note Programme, which LiveWest said would help it to deliver new affordable homes in the South-west.

LiveWest, which operates 36,000 homes across the South-west, said it would use £200m of the funding immediately, using the balance at a later date.

The association said the funds would pay for the construction of 350 new homes over the next eight years at Hartliffe campus in Bristol, in partnership with Keepmoat Homes.

A venture with Barratt would see 158 homes being built over the next five years, 36 of which have already been completed, and it would deliver 116 new homes built at Sherford in Plymouth.

Melvyn Garrett, LiveWest’s deputy chief executive, said the £250m bond “supports our plans to deliver 16,000 homes over the next 10 years which equates to a £2bn investment into the South West economy and will sustain over 7,000 jobs in the building supply chain”.

Outside of the developments covered by the bond funding Garrett said LiveWest had also committed to a £1m regeneration of the Treneere estate in Penzance, including an external redecoration programme of homes and a number of new roof coverings, as part of a £59m programme on maintenance and improvements.