London Estate Regeneration Fund

About the fund

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is offering £50m of capital grant funding. This will be allocated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) to registered providers of social housing.

The funding aims to unlock elements of London estate-regeneration schemes that face unforeseen viability gaps and could not otherwise proceed.

This fund is separate from other government grants, such as the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP). But estate regeneration schemes already receiving such grants can still benefit from this programme, to progress an estate regeneration project.

The fund has a spending window across financial years 2024-2025 and 2025-2026. All funding must be spent before the end of March 2026.

There will be monthly monitoring and reporting of this grant, separate from any other grant funding. The project will also have distinct outcomes.

Eligibility

confidently show the number of homes they'll deliver and over what timeline in their project schedule of works
demonstrate compliance with the London AHP requirements, as set out in the Homes for Londoners: AHP 2021-2026 Funding Guidance, and associated funding agreement. Completed projects will be subject to the GLA’s compliance-audit process and a post-occupancy evaluation.

Gateway criteria

To be eligible, projects must also provide robust evidence to show they satisfy all of the following gateway criteria:

Viability: evidence of viability gaps that could not proceed without additional financial support via the London Estate Regeneration Fund.
Outcomes: grant from London Estate Regeneration Fund should lead to a measurable outcome that does not depend on this funding after financial year 2025-26. (However, the project may have future phases that can be considered separately for funding, and may have 2021-26 AHP funding, which runs to March 2029.) Projects should spend all this funding by March 2026.
Additionality: the project must deliver additional homes. Bids should clearly outline the number of additional homes (and breakdown of tenure) that will be delivered through the funding; this work should be clearly demarcated from any other source of funding.
Deliverability: all critical known deliverability concerns or dependencies should be resolvable by additional funding.
Planning and resident engagement: projects should be at an advanced stage of planning consent and resident engagement.

Key factors

If projects meet the gateway criteria, the GLA will consider them against the following factors:

Strategic aims: how well they meet the strategic aims of increasing local housing supply, improving housing quality, and developing the local community and a sense of place.
Value for money: schemes must provide at least acceptable value for money for the taxpayer. That is, the overall social benefits must be greater than or equal to public-sector costs.
Deliverability: the projects must have defined risk mitigation controls, established track record (local/political credibility), and clear delivery timescales.
Building safety, design, sustainability and equality diversity and inclusion standards: the projects must meet the GLA’s minimum standards for building safety, design, sustainability, and equality, diversity and inclusion. Consideration will also be given to net-zero contribution, modern methods of construction, and use of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Projects not eligible for funding

Projects are not eligible for funding in either of the following instances:

The grant is to be used solely for the purposes of retrofit and/or maintenance.
Projects do not meet existing AHP subsidy control conditions. While the programme has been designed to comply with existing AHP subsidy control regime, grant recipients also have a responsibility to ensure they are not over-compensated from the point of view of subsidy control rules.
Projects which have already claimed start on site as part of the 2016-23 Affordable Housing Programme are not eligible for this programme.

How to apply

You'll be able to submit your bid through GLA OPS. Bidding opens from 21 October 2024.

There is no deadline for submitting a bid – you can place bids anytime, as and when they are ready. We'll consider projects on individual merit until we’ve committed all the funding. We're expecting the funding to be allocated quickly though, due to the short funding window, so it's worth applying early.

Bidders will get more information about specific GLA OPS requirements when the system is open for bidding. We'll also provide information before this to help you put together bidding information for project proposals.

Projects will be reviewed against the criteria. Applicants meeting the requirements will be asked to submit data in Microsoft Excel format to have a full value-for-money assessment.

Supporting information

Estates with other demonstrations of engagement but a ballot exemption, such as advanced resident consultation, can also bid for funding.
Both councils and registered providers can submit a bid.
Bids can also be submitted for community centres, if that is an element which is causing the viability gap and provision of the funding will allow the regeneration progress.
Bids can be submitted even if they do not specify an increase in affordable housing in the proposal.
Partners can bid for a batch of estates where a set of community infrastructure interventions could unlock them all. However, please note that valuation data on each estate will need to be provided for shortlisted projects.

Valuations and viability assessments will be based on phases unlocked by the funding and not phases already started and/or completed.

Housing additionality

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will record the total number unlocked and then count the market and any other homes that the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) cannot fund, alongside other indicators such as brownfield land use and community facilities.

So housing additionality means the total number of homes being built minus the number being demolished of all tenures.

We will prioritise projects which substantially increase the density, adding to London’s Housing stock and meeting government targets, and that will be a key aspect of shortlisting.

Shortlisted bids will then undergo value for money testing undertaken by MHCLG (including providing a valuation) to further test additionality.

Update 30 May 2025

Allocations

When the initial bid window closed, bids totalling £173m had been submitted and the GLA assessed these during the period 19th - 27th November 2024 with oversight from MHCLG. The shortlisted bids were then negotiated to meet the £50m available. These projects underwent value for money testing by MHCLG economists and were approved by the London Estate Regeneration Board in January 2025.

The projects receiving a share of the £50m are:

West Kentish Town Estate

Redevelopment of the existing estate to build new homes and community/commercial facilities. The LERF will fund leaseholder buybacks in the early phases to support the delivery of affordable homes. The redevelopment of the estate will lead to an increase in the amount of affordable floorspace and will include a landscape-led masterplan approach, with a new public open space at the heart of the Estate, with new play spaces, a strong public realm structure and a range of landscape and amenity spaces for residents and the wider community.

Charlton and Albany, London Borough of Hounslow

Charlton & Albany House Estate voted more than 80% in favour of the regeneration of the estate. Design proposals were based on extensive engagement with the estate resident, & with a focus on engagement with young children & young people. The number of homes on the estate will double to 211 and the funding is being used to support project delivery, including leaseholder buybacks, without which the redevelopment cannot progress.

Abbeyfield Estate, London Borough of Southwark

The redevelopment will provide 370 high quality and energy efficient new homes, including larger family homes. Southwark council will also develop a strong sense of place by providing new routes into Southwark Park connecting the estate and surrounding area with the park. The funding in this case is for demolition and enabling feasibility work.

Juniper Crescent, Riverside Housing Group

Juniper Crescent delivers 478 homes in 2 phases including 50% affordable in a safer and more accessible neighbourhood, and a new community hub together with enhanced public and private amenity space. It is being built by a partnership between Riverside Housing Group and Vistry, following a successful ballot in 2022. The funding allows for both phases to be viable, enabling a planning application.

Kings Crescent, London Borough of Hackney

Kings Crescent is a transformative estate regeneration scheme which will deliver 28 new social rent homes, over 70 homes for shared ownership and up to 116 for outright sale, alongside a new community centre; commercial space including workspace and shops; new and improved planting, landscaping and play space. In addition, existing blocks on the estate are being improved, with for example, the introduction of balconies, improved entrances, and more cycle storage for existing residents. The LERF funding in this case is enabling the project to progress as viable, following some critical redesign to respond to new building safety and sustainability regulations that have been introduced since the scheme received planning approval.

Marian Court, London Borough of Hackney

Marian Court will deliver more than 50% much needed affordable housing, including 36 social rented homes; at least 60 shared ownership homes; 66 outright sale; a new community centre; retail space; and better public spaces, landscaping and play facilities. This will complete earlier phases of the estate regeneration scheme at Bridge House.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

The GLA is committed to creating a fairer, more equal and more integrated city where all people feel welcome and able to fulfil their potential.

Inclusive London, the Mayor of London’s equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, sets out how he'll help address the inequalities, barriers and discrimination experienced by different groups of people in London.

One key way to reduce inequality is to tackle the housing crisis.

Having more affordable homes in particular will bring significant equalities benefits to Londoners in housing need, who are likelier to be negatively impacted by poverty and higher housing costs.

The following groups disproportionately make up those in housing need:

households that contain children, including households where one member has the protected characteristic of pregnancy and/or maternity
Deaf and disabled households
Black and minority ethnic households
older and younger Londoners.

More social rented homes will also have positive equalities benefits for those living in social housing – many of whom have protected characteristics.

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