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The £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme: what it means for Norfolk
The first £9.58 billion went to 33 strategic partners on 25 August 2026, and no Norfolk council was among them. Money can still reach the county through housing associations, bidding and Right to Buy.
On 25 August 2026 the government handed out the first £9.58 billion of its £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme, to 33 strategic partners who between them will build about 73,600 homes. No Norfolk council is among the 33, and the announcement gives no figure for Norfolk. What it does show is the routes by which money will reach the county: through the national housing associations that work here, through a standing bidding process for smaller landlords and councils, and through Right to Buy receipts that councils can now keep in full.
What was announced
The programme runs from 2026 to 2036. Homes England administers it outside London; in the capital, the Greater London Authority intends to offer at least £6 billion. At least 60% of all the homes it funds are meant to be for Social Rent, the cheapest form of social housing, with rents set well below the market. For the first-wave partnerships the government expects the share to be nearly two-thirds.
More than £16 billion is still to be allocated outside London, and the government says it will prioritise Social Rent and council housebuilding when it does. Over £2 billion of the first wave is expected to be spent in mayoral areas outside London. Of the six established mayoral authorities named, the largest estimate is £529 million in Greater Manchester, for about 4,400 homes, followed by the North East (£445 million, about 3,400 homes), West Yorkshire (£441 million, about 4,000), the West Midlands (£409 million, about 3,200), the Liverpool City Region (£380 million, about 3,100) and South Yorkshire (£249 million, about 2,200). Those are estimates of what the partners will spend in each area, not grants to the mayors. Norfolk has no established mayoral authority.
Two measures came with it. Councils can now keep and reinvest all of their Right to Buy receipts, which came to £1.61 billion across England in 2025-26. And a £46 million Capacity to Build package over three years pays for council housing teams and early development work. Section 106 agreements, under which developers include affordable homes in private schemes, stay in place.
Who got the money in the first wave
Three councils are among the 33 strategic partners: Cambridge City Council (£96.4 million for 803 homes), Eastleigh and Newcastle. The rest are housing associations and developers. None of Norfolk County Council and the seven district and borough councils (Breckland, Broadland, Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, North Norfolk, Norwich, South Norfolk) is on the list.
One partner does have homes in Norfolk. Flagship, which lets and sells homes across Norfolk and Suffolk, is now a subsidiary of Bromford Flagship LiveWest, which was allocated £350 million for 2,629 homes. The announcement does not say where any partner will build, so how much of that comes to Norfolk is not yet known. Broadland Housing Association, Saffron Housing Trust and Freebridge Community Housing are not strategic partners and will have to bid scheme by scheme.
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How money reaches Norfolk
The main route for everyone else is Continuous Market Engagement (CME). Homes England keeps it open for the whole ten years while money remains, and funds schemes one at a time. It is aimed at small and medium-sized landlords, new entrants and councils that cannot build at the scale of a strategic partner, and at harder schemes including supported housing and rural homes. The programme counts housing in settlements of fewer than 3,000 people as rural. Landlords bidding for a group of sites through CME must start on site by 31 March 2028 and finish by 31 March 2032.
Councils that want to bid can get help with the preparation. On 21 September 2026 the government added £21.8 million to the Council Housebuilding Support Fund, which pays for staff, pipeline work and early site work for about 75 councils. Bids are open until 2 November, decisions are due from December 2026, and there are further rounds in April 2027 and in 2028.
The Right to Buy change helps councils that still own and build homes. Norwich City Council is one: its Goldsmith Street council housing won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2019.
Section 106 homes are funded separately. Programme grant cannot be used to buy homes a developer is already obliged to provide under a Section 106 agreement, but Homes England expects its partners to buy those homes where they can, and will collect figures on how many they take on.
What this means if you are looking to move
If you want a Social Rent home, the programme is slow help. The money is spread over ten years, and schemes can start on site as late as March 2036. The first step is the same as it has always been: apply to the housing register of the district council where you want to live.
The programme also funds shared ownership, where you buy a share of a home and pay rent on the rest, alongside Social Rent and Affordable Rent. With at least 60% of homes reserved for Social Rent, it will not be the main tenure. Flagship Homes is holding a shared ownership discovery day at Carrow Road from 9.30am to midday on Saturday 3 October 2026. Our guide for first-time buyers in Norfolk covers the other schemes.
If you are buying on the open market, nothing in the announcement is aimed at you.
What happens next
The Council Housebuilding Support Fund decisions from December 2026 will show whether any Norfolk council is preparing a bid. CME allocations will show which Norfolk housing associations are winning grant scheme by scheme. And the next rounds of the programme will say how the remaining £16 billion outside London is shared out. We will update this page when the first Norfolk schemes are funded.
Sources: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announcement, 25 August 2026; Homes England list of Social and Affordable Homes Programme strategic partners, 25 August 2026; Homes England SAHP 2026 to 2036 guidance and CME guidance; MHCLG announcement on the Council Housebuilding Support Fund, 21 September 2026; Flagship Group.
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