#243 Propcast: Homes England on the future of housebuilding

From banking to building, this week on PropCast we are joined by Homes England’s Innovation Lead Ed Jezeph. With an insight into Homes England’s new bank, modern construction methods what positives there are for the future of housebuilding in England.

Ed starts by saying how excited he is for Homes England to be launching a bank, noting how it is a natural progression for them as an organisation. Whilst the investment directorate within Homes England has existed for over a decade, largely focussed on debt lending and more recently equity investment and guarantees, this has provided Homes England with plenty of experience. Armed with this experience, they’re now launching the National Housing Bank with 16 billion of government funding announced in June 2025 which, Jezeph says “gives us new funding flexibilities.” He acknowledges some in the market may see them as stepping on other people’s toes, but states “we're not here to compete with the market. We're not here to cut the market. We're here to fill in the gaps. We're a lender of last resort. So, when we talk to our customers, as our borrowers on development finance, we want to know why banks won't lend to them.” He continues to concede this does present some challenges, including but not solely ensuring a cash return for the taxpayer of between 6-8%. All of this has impacted on the housing market in a negative way. He goes on to argue, however, that the real return is "to those communities of stuff being built and the impact and the importance of housing and the social value and the wider economic benefit,” and is therefore worth it.

When challenged about Modern Methods of Construction, or MMC, and what went wrong, Jezeph concedes immediately “there'll be people listening to this, possibly rolling their eyes,” and also acknowledges that Homes England were involved throughout, including when L&G put their modular business into administration. Jezeph says the construction skills shortage, which MMC was designed to tackle, was chronic and the government and Homes England responded to the market dynamic to help tackle this. Over a billion pounds was invested into the sector during this period, with plenty of startups full of energy leading the charge. Whilst some will undoubtedly criticise Homes England for investing around £135 million into the sector, alongside £466 million of private capital, Jezeph disagrees. “The smart response should be ‘we should absolutely do it again.’ Because without that sort of f