£83.5m loan secured for affordable Wythenshawe homes
Wythenshawe Community Housing Group will use half of the money to deliver more than 230 homes in the South Manchester community, with the other half dedicated to refurbishing some of the 14,000 homes that make up its existing portfolio.
Most of the new homes will be available for social rent, although some will be for intermediate rent and shared ownership. As for the existing ones due upgrades, this includes decarbonisation works.
The £83.5m loan for the projects comes from the government’s £6bn Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, which is managed by Venn. Under the terms of the scheme, the loan is funded through bonds backed by the government. This is meant to enable cheaper loan pricing than a social housing provider would achieve on its own.
In the case of the Wythenshawe Community Housing Group loan, the sale of the bonds had a rate of 4.88%.
Oriane Auzanneau, deputy portfolio manager for AHGS and managing director at Venn, said: “There has been considerable volatility in Gilt rates over the past few weeks, and the scheme’s ability to continue to provide borrowers with ready access to the capital markets at all-in rates comfortably below 5% demonstrates the support and value which the scheme brings to the social housing sector.”
Simon Morris, WCHG’s executive director of finance, praised the work of the Venn team.
“Venn were very good to work with, not least in explaining and keeping us fully informed about the process, which was new to us, and ultimately helping deliver an excellent outcome for WCHG,” he said.
