Press release: Homes Building Fund accelerates delivery of 1,300 homes for Cambridge

Hill Marshall LLP, a joint venture between two of Cambridge’s leading family-owned businesses, Marshall Group Properties, part of the Marshall Group, and Hill, the award-winning top 20 UK housebuilder, have secured a funding deal with Homes England to accelerate the delivery of 1,300 homes in Cambridge.

The new development, Wing, will be delivered on 160 acres of brownfield land owned by the Marshall Group. The 10-year loan, worth £22.4 million, will be drawn from Homes England’s Home Building Fund (HBF). The HBF helps unlock or accelerate the delivery of residential and mixed-use housing developments through both development loans and loan funding for the infrastructure needed to prepare land for development.

The money will be used to enable infrastructure works for the entire development, including delivery of Main Spine Road, a strategic drainage network, pumping station & strategic landscaping. New transport infrastructure will also be delivered as part of Wing and the nearby Newmarket Road will be upgraded to create access to the development.

Homes England are also funding the relocation of the ground running enclosure at the airport – a purpose built enclosure to reduce noise effects from aircraft engineering testing and a key planning requirement to be completed before any houses are occupied at the site. The relocation of the ground running enclosure will also support the creation of up to a further 1,800 new homes in development sites around the airport.

The funding is being made available in advance of full reserved matters approval being obtained, which is the normal point at which high street lenders would be able to provide funding. This allows the first phase of housing at Wing to be delivered up to 18 months ahead of schedule.

The first phase of the development will be delivered by Hill and once complete, will comprise 350 private homes and 150 affordable homes – including shared ownership and affordable rent tenures.

A spokesperson from Hill Marshall LLP said: “Marshall Group and Hill are two like-minded family firms committed to making Cambridge one of the best cities to live in the UK. We are delighted to have secured new funding from Homes England’s Home Building Fund for this development in the City – it will ensure we are able to deliver an outstanding new community for local residents in half the amount of time it would normally take. Cambridge has long been established as one of the best places to live in the UK and this new community seeks to add further to the City’s success.”

Nick Walkley, Homes England Chief Executive, added: “At Homes England we’re using our land, finance and expertise to speed up the delivery of new homes. This loan through our Home Building Fund is a significant step towards seeing this 1,300 home new community at this key development site in Cambridge become a reality and I look forward to seeing work start on site.”

To commemorate the funding announcement, James Palmer, Mayor of Cambridge & Peterborough Combined Authority, Andy Hill, Chief Executive at Hill, Rob Hall, Deputy Managing Director at Hill, Robert Marshall, Chief Executive of Marshall Group, Richard Howe Managing Director of Marshall Group and Nick Walkley, Chief Executive at Homes England, attended a signing ceremony at Cambridge Airport on 21st May.

The homes on the first phase of Wing are designed by the award-winning team at Pollard Thomas Edwards architects and will offer a range of properties including 1, 2 and 3-bedroom apartments and 2, 3, 4 and 5-bedroom houses. The development will also be home to a wide-range of facilities to support the new community including a new primary school, sports pitches, allotments and retail and commercial space.

Wing is well connected with the new Cambridge North Station just 1¼ miles away and regular buses to the city centre from the nearby park and ride car park. Sales are expected to launch at the development in late 2019, with the first homes expected to be complete in the summer of 2020.

Ends

Notes to Editors

About Hill:

“To be the leading, most trusted provider of distinctive, quality homes in the UK”.

Hill is an award-winning UK top 20 housebuilder and one of the leading developers in London and the south east of England, delivering both private for sale and affordable homes.

The company builds in the region of 2,000 homes a year, including more than 1,000 homes for clients and partners in the affordable housing sector. Hill’s portfolio is diverse, ranging from landmark mixed-use regeneration schemes and large-scale urban extensions, to bespoke housing in rural communities.
Hill has won a string of awards including the WhatHouse? Development of the Year title three years in a row and their Housebuilder of the Year award in 2015.

About Marshall

Marshall was founded in Cambridge as a chauffeur business in 1909 and has grown to become one of the largest private employers in Cambridge and across the UK. Marshall comprises three main businesses: Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group, Marshall Group Properties; and Marshall Group Finance which holds a 65% majority shareholding in Marshall Motor Holdings plc, the independent motor retail and leasing business floated by Marshall on the AIM market in 2015. Marshall has consolidated annual sales in excess of £2.2bn and has over 6,000 employees. Marshall Group Properties’ portfolio includes 950 acres of land in Cambridge, including Cambridge Airport, and over 2,000,000 ft² of commercial and industrial property.

About Homes England

Homes England is the new housing delivery organisation that has been created to adopt a more commercial approach to respond to the long term housing challenges facing this country. The new, expanded agency will play a far bigger role in investing in supply and intervening in the market to help deliver 300,000 homes a year by the middle of the next decade.