A major investment deal has been finalised to deliver nearly 1,000 high-quality rental homes at Digbeth development in Birmingham. Aviva Capital Partners and Moda Group have partnered with NatWest, Homes England, and the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to fund the £200m+ Stone Yard development—set to transform a prominent four-acre brownfield site into a thriving build-to-rent (BTR) neighbourhood. The agreement signals a strong collaboration between the public and private sectors, supporting the delivery of new homes while promoting regeneration, sustainability, and community-building. Phase one of the Stone Yard project will see the delivery of 605 homes across four blocks, backed by debt financing from NatWest and Homes England via the Home Building Fund. A future phase will add another three blocks, bringing the total to 995 homes. The WMCA has contributed brownfield grant funding, enabling 20% of the homes to be offered as affordable housing at Discounted Market Rent. These homes will be spread across the site to support inclusive, community-led regeneration. Homes England’s investment includes around £40 million in debt funding, building on its Strategic Place Partnership (SPP) with the WMCA. This initiative aims to drive locally-led housing growth in key areas such as Digbeth, which anchors the East Birmingham and North Solihull corridor. The development is designed with a strong focus on sustainability, aiming for top-tier accreditation from organisations such as Fitwel, Home Quality Mark, and BREEAM. In addition to high-specification apartments, residents will benefit from a suite of amenities, including co-working spaces, 24/7 gyms, lounges, studio spaces and private dining rooms. Stone Yard will also feature landscaped public areas, commercial units, and improved connections to local attractions, contributing to Digbeth’s growing reputation as a vibrant and inclusive neighbourhood. Moda will operate the buildings and public realm, delivering its signature approach to health, wellbeing, technology, and resident experience, ensuring a professionally managed and diverse community at the heart of the city. Construction is being led by Caddick Construction, Moda’s sister company, with initial works now underway. Completion of the first phase is anticipated in 2028. Located on Deritend Road, the Stone Yard site sits adjacent to the Custard Factory and directly opposite the new Eastside Metro extension and the upcoming HS2 Curzon Street Station, placing future residents at the heart of Birmingham’s cultural and transport networks. Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals

Award-winning housebuilder The Hill Group has announced record financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025, marking its second consecutive year of historic growth. The company reported a turnover of £1.15 billion and a pre-tax profit of £90.5 million, completing more than 2,800 new homes across its operations. The figures cement Hill’s position among the UK’s top 10 housebuilders by revenue and represent the successful culmination of its five-year business plan launched in 2020. Hill’s strong performance was underpinned by its diversified business model. The Group’s private housing arm, Hill Residential, maintained steady demand despite ongoing market uncertainty, with sales accelerating in the final quarter. The division achieved an average selling price of £613,000 and entered the new financial year with 40% forward sales. Meanwhile, Hill Partnerships, responsible for delivering affordable homes for Registered Providers and Local Authorities, surpassed expectations. Particularly strong activity was reported in London and special projects, with growth also recorded in the northern and southern Home Counties. The Group also made strategic progress in the Build-to-Rent (BTR) sector, securing two major forward-funded deals: 264 homes at Nexus in Stevenage and 365 homes at Dagenham Green in partnership with Peabody. These projects signal increasing institutional confidence in Hill’s delivery model and bolster the resilience of its development strategy. Over the year, Hill invested £77.9 million in new land, bringing total land and work-in-progress holdings to £638.9 million. Net assets rose to £431.8 million, and the Group ended the year with net cash of £118.3 million, having fully repaid its revolving credit facility. The Group’s development pipeline now includes over 32,000 homes, with 10,200 having full planning consent, 1,500 under control subject to planning, and a strategic landbank of 20,300 units. The pipeline is projected to generate more than £12.5 billion in gross development value. Hill’s contracting pipeline also grew substantially, reaching £4.8 billion—up from £3.7 billion the previous year. This year’s results build on a previous milestone, when Hill surpassed £1 billion in revenue for the first time during the 15-month reporting period ending March 2024, achieving profits of £70 million. Andy Hill OBE, Founder and Group Chief Executive, praised the team’s resilience: “These results reflect the outstanding work of our people and partners in what remains a challenging market. To surpass our previous record in a twelve-month period is a fantastic achievement and a real credit to the strength of our business model, the quality of our homes, and the determination of everyone across the Group. As we report on our 25th year of business, I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished together.” In addition to strong financials, Hill expanded its footprint with major regeneration projects in London, Bristol, and Coventry. It also reinforced joint venture partnerships with several housing associations and invested internally by doubling its graduate trainee intake to 40 and appointing new senior leaders. Sustainability and social responsibility remained a core focus. Hill earned its first Gold award in the NextGeneration ESG benchmark, rising from fifth to third place and retaining its status as the UK’s top-ranked privately owned housebuilder for a fourth consecutive year. The Group also advanced its Foundation 200 initiative, which delivers modular homes for people experiencing homelessness, and extended its involvement in the Government’s Released on Temporary Licence scheme, which supports prisoner rehabilitation through construction employment. Looking ahead, The Hill Group is launching a new five-year business plan (2025–2030), targeting continued growth in Build-to-Rent, estate regeneration, and the creation of new towns, while maintaining its emphasis on partnership-led and mixed-tenure developments. Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals

The latest analysis by West One Loans, a leading provider of property finance and specialist mortgages, has revealed that the nation’s biggest housebuilders have been utilising their £200bn landbank to deliver more homes to market in the face of growing buyer demand spurred by improving market confidence and greater mortgage affordability. West One Loans analysed the latest company reports for eight of the nation’s biggest housebuilders to see which currently boasts the strongest pipeline with respect to their individual landbanks and the value of these plots in the current market. The government has been vocal in its demands for the nation’s housebuilders to ‘roll up their sleeves’ in order to help achieve the ambitious target of 1.5m new homes by 2029. So much so, it recently announced tough new rules forcing them to commit to delivery time frames to get planning permission, with those caught slacking risking losing their land to local authorities. However, the latest analysis by West One Loans shows that the majority of the nation’s major housebuilders are already rising to the task, having reduced their landbank pipelines as a result of delivering more homes. The analysis shows that across eight of the nation’s biggest housebuilders, some 488,620 land bank plots were recorded within their 2024 reports. Based on the current average UK new-build house price of £406,390, this means that the total pipeline of these eight developers alone is worth an estimated £198.6bn. It’s Bellway that currently boasts the most robust pipeline, with 95,292 land bank plots reported in its 2024 figures, holding an estimated market value of £38.7bn. Persimmon ranks second, with 82,084 plots in its pipeline worth an estimated £33.4bn, whilst Taylor Wimpey sits third at £32bn in market value across 78,626 landbank plots. However, whilst these developers have maintained a robust pipeline of plots, further analysis by West One Loans shows that there has been an increase in activity with respect to developing their land banks, no doubt driven by improving market conditions and increasing buyer demand as a result of a stabilising mortgage market. Across all eight major housebuilders, total land bank volumes have fallen by 3.6% over the last year. In fact, all but one of the developers analysed by West One Loans has reduced the size of its land bank. Vestry Group has broken the most ground in this respect, with a -7.9% year on year reduction in land bank volumes. Berkeley Group has seen a -6.8% reduction, whilst Crest Nicholson has seen an annual drop of -6%. Just Miller Homes has seen an increase in this respect, although a marginal one, with its land bank volumes up by 0.1% on an annual basis. Co-Head of Short-Term Finance at West One Loans, Thomas Cantor, commented: “It’s clear that whilst many of the nation’s developers have been sure to maintain a robust pipeline of land bank plots, they have also been pushing forward and breaking ground in order to bring more homes to market to meet growing demand. This is despite the fact that the current landscape still presents a range of challenges but, as interest rates have stabilised, we’ve seen more housebuilders turn to the specialist finance sector to help them facilitate their ambitions This has largely taken the form of a greater reliance on bridging in order to help part fund their initial project, as well as utilising development finance in order to exit existing builds in order to push forward with the next. We’ve seen numerous examples over the last 12 months whereby developers have utilised us to help them in both instances and, finding a finance specialist that can do so will ensure a far smoother process throughout.” Data tables and sources View the full data tables and sources online here.  Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals