John Carleton, who was appointed earlier this month to head up the consultant’s housing and regeneration team in Manchester, told Construction News that the firm would bring organisations together to make projects more attractive to funders.

These organisations include local authorities, developers, housing associations and land owners.

“There’s a sense that there’s a wall of money waiting to get out there into housing,” he said.

“What it’s looking for is investable projects; it needs ourselves together with private and public sector partnerships to shape [them].”

He said partnerships between local authorities and the private sector, alongside masterplanning of major projects, would be the key to unlocking investment.

“There are a number of aspirational organisations in the North of England that want to work with local authorities and developers,” he said.

“The role for Arcadis and for me is to make that happen, and to bring those organisations together.”

Major regeneration schemes in Manchester include the masterplan for Holt Town Waterfront, stretching from New Islington near the city’s Piccadilly Station, to the sports city complex and the Etihad Stadium in the east of the city.

Holt Town will be a mixed-use, residential-led development phased over 15 years, with a total size of 38 ha, and is being led by developer Cibitas.

Mr Carleton added that the “onus is on the public sector” to both engage with the private sector and to release more land to help development get underway.

“A big part of the equation is land – particularly public sector land – and there is a really strong onus on the public estate, because ultimately all these projects, and all this money, needs land,” he said.

He added that Network Rail’s decision to release land for 12,000 new homes by 2020 was “fantastic” for developers.

The organisation has identified 200 sites that are suitable for housing development across the UK, while Manchester and the North of England will see land for 3,600 homes unlocked as part of the plan.

“If you think of the land that [Network Rail] owns, and the impact that investment in stations has in the surrounding area – you only need to look at what’s happened since Manchester Piccadilly has been improved,” said Mr Carleton.

“20 years ago if you were getting a train from Manchester Piccadilly you’d be there five minutes before your train. Now it’s a destination, in the same way that King’s Cross is a destination.”

However, he added that the changing role of housing associations would be put under the spotlight in the coming years with the sector “probably not delivering to the government’s expectations”.

Mr Carleton, formerly managing director at London-based housing association Genesis and a former director at the Housing Corporation, said a cross-subsidy model would be a crucial to helping housing associations build more homes.

“Some housing associations have substantial asset bases that they really need to utilise,” he said.

“The cross-subsidy model has to be developed more and more. There isn’t enough public money to provide the level of subsidy that was around in the past.

“If we are going to build affordable housing – by definition housing that can have a value less than its cost – we have to have ways of creating that subsidy.”

He said the model was more readily used in the South of England and used Genesis’ partnership with Berkeley Homes and Hackney Council to deliver over 5,000 homes in London as one example.

Housing groups in the North have already begun to examine the model, with social housing provider ForViva launching its own development arm to build homes for outright sale and market rent to fund its social housing programme.

However, Mr Carleton said more housing associations needed to step up to help address the housing crisis.

“What that means for housing associations is that they have to accept a higher level of risk,” he said.

“Some of them may have the balance sheet and the weight to do that themselves, but increasingly it’s about partnering.

“It’s about bringing together local authorities, private developers and housing associations and creating those strong partnerships.”

On the Greater Manchester mayoral race in May next year, Mr Carleton said candidates needed to understand the importance of having a balanced housing market. 

Current frontrunner and Labour MP Andy Burnham has pledged to use the devolved £300m housing fund for affordable rent and rent-to-own properties, rather than luxury homes, but Mr Carleton said the focus should not be “on one or the other”.

“He has recognised that we have a polarised housing market that doesn’t deliver that much choice,” he said.

“But we can’t ignore the fact that, as a growing economy, we need to have aspirational housing as well.

“The North needs more houses but in a lot of cases it needs better houses and different types of houses; it needs different tenures.”

He added that more mixed-tenure developments would need to be developed to meet different housing need across the North, where the housing demand is “more nuanced” than in the South.