The scheme will provide a substantial increase in funding for the delivery of new affordable homes, with £27.3bn to be allocated outside London over the 10 years 2026-2036. The two key priorities will be to support an increase in housebuilding and to deliver 60% of homes as Social Rent. This level of funding and tenure mix means the scheme is expected to contribute around 300,000 homes over its lifetime.

Speed is of the essence for March 2029 deadline

The SAHP places specific emphasis on funding sites which can deliver completed homes by March 2029 and count towards the government’s 1.5m homes target. HAs bidding for funding through either the strategic partnerships or continuous market engagement (CME) routes are likely to be at an advantage if they can demonstrate that they can move at speed.

This means finding sites which can progress swiftly and partners who can deliver quickly. Most sites which will provide completed homes by this date are already in the planning system. Our analysis of Glenigan data since 2017 suggests that sites of 100-200 units take an average of 6.3 years to progress from outline application to completion, limiting the scope for sites in the longer-term pipeline to complete before the initial March 2029 deadline.

We have identified just over 14,000 sites of 20+ homes nationally which have at least submitted an outline planning application, containing approximately 2.95m homes. The data allows us to break this down to a site-by-site level looking at the size and type of sites coming forward within local markets.

Understanding who controls the land

Accessing near-term development opportunities will also depend on who controls the land. Sites which are further through the planning process are more likely to be in the hands of parties who will look to develop themselves – 66% of units with full permission are controlled by developers or HAs. In these cases, partnership arrangements would be the most likely way for HAs to access land. Given the challenges around viability in development, slowing sales rates in the private market, and the funding opportunity available to HAs, a partnership route looks increasingly attractive to both HAs and private developers. Understanding who the key private developers are that own sites in the local pipeline will be crucial for HAs looking to build partner relationships.

Looking further into the future pipeline, just 47% of units at outline permission are owned by parties likely to develop, leaving 390,000 units at this stage (and 800,000 units overall) owned by land promoters, investors, public sector bodies and other parties who are likely to sell the site to a developer. HAs may be able to bid for these sites, but will be competing in a relatively constrained land market. Many housebuilders will be looking for smaller sites (50-150 homes) that can deliver in a relatively short time frame to boost their outlet numbers while sales rates remain constrained, but this type of site is in short supply (see our Land Matters publication here).

Further land opportunities for Housing Associations

While the SAHP will support speedy delivery where possible, the final deadline to start homes under the programme is the end of March 2036, giving a full decade for sites which aren’t currently in the planning system to be promoted and to deliver. This opens up another host of land opportunities for HAs – our analysis of Landstack data suggests there are 1.71m homes on adopted allocations and 1.94m homes on draft allocations nationally which are yet to enter the planning application process. Again, we can look at the pipeline of allocated land, and the size and number of sites coming forward, at a local level.

Over this longer term, the housing market fundamentals and the robustness of future demand will be important considerations for HAs in choosing where to build homes. But given the speed of the planning and development process, HAs will soon need to have an eye to their longer-term pipeline to ensure they can secure sites efficiently and maximise the value of having a longer-term funding settlement instead of the usual five-year cycle.

With bids for strategic partnership funding set to open in February 2026 and CME funding soon to become available, HAs should be thinking now about where and how they want to engage with development over the next decade.

Further information

Contact Dan Hill – Savills Research