07 July 2006
A property company that manages homes for local authorities has become the first private firm to apply to the Housing Corporation to be an accredited landlord.
Pinnacle PSG hopes to gain its accreditation in time to manage some of the homes built by private developers as part of the 2006/08 National Affordable Housing Programme.
Seven developers won grants from the corporation this year alongside housing associations, which, until now, have been the only bodies eligible for public funding. But, as things stand, the developers would then have to ask an association to manage the homes on their behalf.
Ian Keys, partnerships director at Pinnacle, said it had no aspirations to build homes itself but might team up with a developer and submit a joint bid. 'We want to position ourselves to be a potential managing partner,' he said.
Pinnacle holds management contracts with Edinburgh and Burnley councils, as well as the London Borough of Hackney, where it runs estates in Shoreditch. The accreditation process is expected to take up to six months.
Just 2% of the £3.9bn paid out in grants for 2006/08 went to private developers, who expect to build 2,000 homes out of a total of 84,000.
Speaking at the National Housing Federation's development and regeneration conference on June 30, Steve Douglas, the corporation's deputy chief executive, revealed that plans by private builders for a further 5,500 homes were rejected because they did not represent value for money or there were question marks over when they would be built.
Discussions were continuing with developers over whether these plans could be resurrected for later rounds.
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