A NEW Church of England development agency and “national capability team” have been launched by the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, to enable dioceses to provide “high quality affordable housing” within their communities.
The two bodies are the culmination of years of work on the recommendations of the report Coming Home, published by the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing in 2021.
The report described as “a national scandal” the fact that eight million people in England were living in overcrowded, unaffordable, or unsuitable homes (News, 26 February 2021). It recommended that the Church form partnerships with housing associations and local authorities to help to provide affordable housing on some of the Church’s 200,000 acres of land.
The Church Housing Association (CHA) was proposed a year later (News, 27 May 2022) and is in the final stages of registration as a provider of social housing. Separately, the Church Housing Foundation (CHF) was launched early last year to support and promote this work (News, 10 March 2023).
The new Church Development Agency (CDA), a professional company owned by the diocese of Gloucester, will work with the CHA to develop affordable housing in “challenging areas of high need”.
Alongside this, a new national team is being formed within the Archbishops’ Council’s Faith and Public Life team to support dioceses in identifying and mapping future opportunities for housing programmes. The Archbishops’ Council has allocated £4.25 million over five years for central resources for this team.
Dr Francis-Dehqani, who is the lead bishop for housing, made the announcement before visiting communities and housing projects in Birmingham on Tuesday.
“If the Church of England is to put our vision for good homes and thriving communities into practice, we need to have the organisational infrastructure in place to deliver in complex circumstances,” she said. “That has been my priority over the past two years, and I am pleased to be able to report significant progress today.”
In the summer, the CDA appointed Dan Mayes MRICS as its first chief executive. He has started work on pilot projects across the dioceses of Birmingham and Gloucester to deliver new affordable homes for rent for local families. The CDA pilot, projected to cost £2.6 million over three years, is being funded both by diocesan grants and a £1.7 million grant from the charity Oak Foundation.
This funding does not include building or purchase costs of social housing, which, the Church Times understands, are be met from standard sources such as Homes England grants for social houses, secured finance, and the use of land assets — to be confirmed.
Mr Mayes said on Tuesday that putting dioceses, churches, and communities at the centre of this vision “means a very different starting point compared with other developments. Working together we can unlock the right sites in the right places that will make a difference.
“Our challenge at this stage is not only finding the sites, but ensuring we have the right combination of community engagement and investment to fully deliver for those in need. Bishop Guli’s visit today to meet our partners and civic leaders will help us to make further progress on all fronts.”
The new national capability team, with the CDA, will support dioceses in identifying good opportunities for housing development, and provide advice on church-led projects. The director of Faith and Public Life for the Archbishops’ Council, Canon Malcolm Brown, said: “Collectively we have learned a great deal from pilot areas such as Birmingham. We know how vital it is to support dioceses in mapping their land and understanding what might be possible, so that is what we are putting in place.
“Our new team has substantial experience in supporting church organisations as they step into new housing programmes. We can provide a level of support, and link dioceses and churches with further support that their unique circumstances may require. This is just the start of our plans, with more to come in 2025.”
Dr Francis-Dehqani said that the progress made on the Coming Home report and its recommendations had been “hard-won”. More important, though, than the “substantial investment and capability” now in place was the Church’s “refreshed commitment to meeting housing need as integral to our mission and ministry. We are actively putting this into practice.”