Exeter City Council was delighted to be among 47 authorities to have won funding under the first phase of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) Local Authority New Build (LANB) programme.

We were awarded £1,545,000, to be matched by our own prudential borrowing, for 21 new homes - 18 at Merlin Crescent and three at Sivell Place.

Having undertaken complex financial appraisals for the new build scheme, we calculated that it would be up to 10 percent more cost-effective if delivered in-house as far as possible. We also believe this is the best way to control the quality of the project. Value for money will be monitored throughout and lessons learnt applied to future projects.

Our in-house team brings together a project manager, staff with specific expertise, housing management representatives, an architect, a quantity surveyor, and procurement officers. The Council will contract the work directly with a building contractor and employ an external CDM co-ordinator. The architect is responsible for a range of other consultants and building issues.

Professionals at the authority are drawing upon previous experience of managing large construction contracts - particularly a new museum archive facility and ecofriendly offices. Our new properties have now received approval from the council’s planning committee. The final specifications and costs have been agreed. Consultants have been appointed. Tenders for the contractors will go out in early January and final selection will be made in February. We have had to work to an exacting timetable, but are on target to begin construction on site by the end of March.

Exeter’s tenants chose for the Council to be their landlord and building new homes has been a clear political priority for us as a stock retained authority.

We have campaigned alongside other Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) member authorities for the Government to put a financial framework in place to enable authorities to fulfil their new build potential after decades of being starved of resources and denied a level playing field with other social housing providers.

But this is not just about bricks and mortar. Exeter’s new build programme links to our asset management strategy and regeneration objectives.

The Council has placed a strong emphasis on high quality, sustainable properties and innovative designs for its new homes in order to show leadership to other agencies through exemplar schemes. To this end, we have made use of local architects specialising in eco-designs. Resident focus groups and surveys also have been undertaken to ensure the schemes meet community needs and aspirations.

The new homes will be built to Lifetime Homes and Secure by Design standards and include units that are fully accessible for disabled residents. They will be constructed to a minimum Code for Sustainable Homes 4 standard. Fuel costs are estimated to be 75 percent lower than a normal property and on one scheme we intend to install photo-voltaic cells to produce electricity for each flat.

Most of the new properties will be aimed at the over 55’s. Allocation will be targeted at older people looking to downsize from existing social housing in the city - thereby freeing up family-sized accommodation for families on the housing register.

Exeter has applied for funds for five new schemes as part of the HCA LANB round two bidding process, which ended on 31st October. If successful this would take our own build programme up to 96 units on six in-fill sites and a disused church site over the next two years.

Construction that is currently getting under way on sites across England marks the largest local government housing programme since the 1980s, with the 47 councils sharing £127 million HCA LANB funding matched by prudential borrowing to develop more than 2,000 properties.

ARCH members including Broxtowe, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Croydon, Southwark and West Lancashire were successful in the first round and there is a keen appetite among stock retainers to build more.

The LANB programme is a chance to show that councils can build affordable, high quality, environmentally friendly homes at good value for money. Exeter and other ARCH members believe this is just a start however.

We hope that 2,000 new homes will soon be 20,000 and then 200,000 - and that councils will become mainstream providers of properties that not only meet local accommodation needs but also meet the wider needs of communities.

Steve Warran is head of housing at Exeter City Council and an executive board member of the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH).