19 December 2003
Housing associations that fail to win grants because of competition from private developers have been invited to manage estates for the companies that carry out construction.
Terry Fuller, a director of Taylor Woodrow Developments and chair of the House Builders' Federation affordable housing group, said firms had little intention of getting involved in activities such as rent collection.
'Door-to-door collection is not our core business,' he told the Henry Stewart conference on social housing. 'Don't expect us to start putting together management organisations.'
Insisting that private developers could deliver 'more for less' as the government wants, Fuller also claimed they were not a major threat to social landlords in the way some housing associations imagined.
Although developers should expect to be audited on money they receive via the public sector, companies such as Taylor Woodrow would fight shy of coming under the full auspices of the Housing Corporation.
'I cannot see any developer wanting to become a fully regulated social landlord,' said Fuller. 'I guess the corporation will look at a light touch regime for developers.'
PFdec2003
