Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much of the Homes England Home Building Fund has been spent in the North East since October 2016.

The £3 billion Home Building Fund provides short term and long term loan finance to build the homes this country needs.

An additional £1.5 billion funding was announced in the Autumn 2017 Budget to provide loans specifically targeted at supporting SMEs who cannot access the finance they need to build.

The Home Building Fund has been a great success and since launched in October 2016 has delivered 10,747 starts and unlocked 14,704 homes.

Also since its launch, a total of £14.2 million has been contracted of which £4.9 million has been spent in the North East of England

The average Loan Amount for Contracted Schemes since October 2016 is £6.5 million and the average length of time to process loans are:

• 284 days between enquiry submitted and contract date

• 229 days between application submitted and contract date

• 153 days between approval date and contract date

The figures quoted are for both long term and short term funds, which often include complex applications involving infrastructure and site development which may take longer to assess.

Due to the different nature of the schemes supported, the time taken from submission to be approved ranged from 11 to 230 days and the time taken from approval to contract ranged from 75 to 354 days. The time taken at both stages reflects the interaction required between the agency and the borrower on each case.

There has been a large amount of interest in the funds with over 2,000 enquiries, receiving on average 25 a week since the funds launched and Homes England are working hard to speed up the application process.

In order to meet demand, Homes England has introduced a new streamlined enquiry and application process as part of their improved Service Standards and has recruited more staff to manage applications and reduce the timescales.