Homes England deals with ‘ambitious’ SAHP bids as it aims for autumn reveal

However, in what appeared to be a reference to the prospect of a possible Labour leadership contest, she added: “Your guess is as good as mine on wider things that may or may not impact on that timeline.”

Ms Rees said that Homes England has received “ambitious” bids for the SAHP.

“We asked people to step up and be ambitious, and that looks like it’s true,” she said.

“We have got a really good level of bids in. It is certainly true that I think people have heard the message that what we want is early delivery in this parliament, and I certainly make no apologies for that because now is the time.”

In a separate session, Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, laid the ground for some landlords to disappointed.

“We almost certainly won’t be able to satisfy [all the bids], but that is a really good sign of the appetite that’s out there among registered providers,” he told delegates in Leeds. 

Ms Reeds added: “We have the funding, we have the [National Housing Bank], we have the organisation and the houses are needed now.”

She said Homes England is still working on the bids, but added: “What I genuinely can’t tell you, and what we’ll have to work through, is how the profile looks.

“Not only have we got to manage a sum of money and delivery, we’ve also got to manage the profile that the Treasury can fund.

“The £27bn that we’re managing is one thing, but it doesn’t all get delivered in year one.

“We’ve also got to make sure that people’s ambitions fit the profile that we’ve delivered, so that’s the work we’ve got to do over the summer.”

Ms Ritchie said the agency has received “significant interest” in the programme, including “quite a number” of bids from councils.

“We’ve had local authorities bidding to run their own social and affordable programmes to do more development,” Ms Ritchie said. She called this a “really welcome change”.  

Ms Ritchie added that Homes England is working with the strategic partners on a range of projects.

She said: “We’re working with them on things like, how do they take advantage of the [National Housing] Bank, how do they work with us in achieving regional ambitions, how do we help them access land?”

Last month Social Housing revealed that the National Housing Bank will open bids for its £1bn share of low-cost loans for social housing providers in the autumn too.