Rural housing in South West finds it ‘difficult’ to attract investors, says Octopus director

Securing private funding to deliver more general needs and supported housing in rural areas of south west England is “difficult”, a major institutional investor has told the Chartered Institute of Housing’s (CIH) annual conference in the region.

Peter Merchant, affordable housing investment at Octopus Investments told the CIH South West conference in Bristol that investors often don’t realise there are investment opportunities in rural housing because perceptions of the level of housing need in the countryside are often wrong.

Merchant, said:“One of the things we see as particularly difficult in the South West is understanding housing need”. 

“I have to convince [private investors] that this village with a population of 3,000 people really does need 54 more homes, and that’s difficult.”

Institutional investor Octopus in 2022 announced an ambition to invest £1bn into affordable housing within five years. Octopus’ affordable housing fund aims to deliver 5,000 homes.

>>See also: How Octopus plans to get its tentacles into affordable housing 

Versha Koria, head of affordable housing growth (South West) at Homes England, also spoke at the session, which focused on building at scale across all tenures in the South West, including supported housing.

She said: “Local authorities really are working on understanding the housing need. In terms of supported housing, certainly from Homes England’s point of view, we have always committed to about 10% to 25% for supported housing.

Although she acknowledged that there are “challenges” around delivering homes for diverse populations, she said that “actually there’s quite a lot of housing for different communities in rural areas”, including “family housing.”

Sarah Hemming, the session’s chair and Exeter City Council’s housing lead for performance, strategy and resident involvement, suggested making a proportion of new homes “more adaptable” by “making sure two or three of those rural family homes are lifetime homes” so retired people are not dislocated from their communities when they require more accessible housing.