Council Leader Appointed To Top Job At HCA

Chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), Sir Edward Lister has announced Nick Walkley as the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer of the agency. The government recently published a wide-ranging review of the HCA to help improve its efficiency and provide greater focus to its housebuilding work. Nick joins the agency with years of experience of providing strong leadership and delivering housing and regeneration schemes. He has been Chief Executive of Haringey council for the past 4 years, having previously been Chief Executive of Barnet council. Read more on the HCA website.

HCA Chair Reveals Equal Split Of Funding For Tenures

The government’s £4.7bn Affordable Homes Programme could equally fund affordable housing, Rent to Buy and homeownership products, the chair of the HCA has revealed. Sir Edward Lister said the Affordable Homes Programme will be “very much a third, a third, a third arrangement” including homeownership, Rent to Buy and “an element of affordable”. Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed in the Autumn Statement that the rules around the Affordable Homes Programme will be relaxed to fund affordable rented and Rent to Buy homes. However, housing minister Gavin Barwell appeared to contradict this. He was asked what proportion of the programme would fund affordable rented and social rented housing. He responded: “What we have done with the Affordable Homes Programme is to give complete flexibility, so I can’t give a specific answer because it will depend on the bids housing associations make from the programme.” Read more on Inside Housing.

New Chair Of HCA Appointed

Sir Edward Lister has been appointed the new chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency, Communities Secretary Greg Clark announced. Sir Edward joins with years of experience of the housing sector. For the last 5 years he has been London’s Deputy Mayor for policy and planning and chief of staff at the Greater London Authority (GLA). His wide-ranging role there included increasing public land disposals and developing new finance models to sustain long-term investment in the capital’s infrastructure.  Prior to joining the GLA, Sir Edward was Leader of Wandsworth council for 19 years. Read more on the HCA website.