A New National Housing Development Body for Wales: Don’t Wait to Deliver
- Apr 16
- 7 min read
A thought piece by David Ward, Chief Executive of Tirion Homes, on why Wales must prioritise delivery over structure in tackling the housing crisis.
Wales faces a housing crisis that is getting worse, not better. The next Senedd will be judged not on the quality of its housing strategy, but on the number of homes it delivers.
A new housing development body could be a powerful tool, but only if it is built around delivery from day one.
As we approach the Senedd elections, momentum is building behind proposals to establish a housing body for Wales. Options include transforming the Unnos Construction Company into such a body.
This reflects a growing recognition across political parties that Wales does not currently have the delivery capacity required to meet economic and housing need at scale. However, in the context of the housing crisis, creating new organisations is not the same as increasing and accelerating the delivery of new homes.
The real challenge and opportunity, is how we translate institutional ambition into delivery on the ground.
The issue: delivery over policy
Wales is not short of policy ambition, but as we set out in Tirion Homes’ recent white paper¹, increasing and accelerating delivery faces a number of significant challenges. The constraint in Wales is not a lack of ambition; it is a lack of integrated delivery capacity, and that will not be solved by restructuring alone.
Public subsidy is delivering fewer homes per pound than ever before and is under ever increasing budgetary constraints;
Regulatory requirements, while necessary, are increasingly constraining delivery capacity;
Planning delays and viability challenges are slowing the pace of delivery; and
Development and construction capacity is increasingly constrained by a lack of pipeline certainty.
The result is a system where good intentions are not translating into sufficient homes to satisfy demand in all sectors of the market. This is the challenge that a new development agency must address within its housing remit.
A familiar idea in a different context
There is understandable interest in revisiting the model of a national development agency but today’s context is fundamentally different. The housing challenge is no longer just about supporting economic development, it is about:
Delivering across all affordable and market tenures;
Balancing quality, sustainability with the need to accelerate delivery at scale;
Unlocking private capital and investment whilst maximising the impact of public subsidy;
Assembling land and converting it into a viable long-term pipeline of projects; and
Creating vibrant and sustainable communities with placemaking at their core.
If a new agency is to succeed, it must be designed around the principles of simplicity, scale and speed. These principles should inform the transition to, and formation of, any new agency.
The drivers of delivery
From Tirion Homes’ experience, the critical factor is not organisational structure, it is delivery capability and capacity. Over the last Senedd term and despite being a small organisation, Tirion has:
Regenerated challenging sites into successful mixed tenure neighbourhoods;
Delivered mixed, tenure-blind communities at scale;
Secured over £100m of long-dated institutional investment; and identified an appetite from a variety of sources of additional private investment;
Provided affordable homes without reliance on Social Housing Grant; and
Delivered high standards of design, placemaking and long-term stewardship.
In parallel, Welsh Government created a new Land Division charged with acquiring, assembling and servicing land for the delivery of new housing. Welsh Government also facilitated the acquisition of land by Registered Social Landlords through the Land for Housing Loan Scheme.
The Development Bank of Wales was also established but with a remit primarily to support SMEs in Wales failing to recognise housing as a critical part of the economic infrastructure of Wales.
However, despite increasing amounts of land being in the control of organisations with shared housing objectives and the existence of a nationally owned Bank charged with supporting the economy, the pace of delivery has slowed. Why is this? It is because unlocking significant levels of private investment for housing is critical to success a fact that has not been fully recognised.
The single biggest untapped lever for housing delivery in Wales is private institutional investment. Until this is treated as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought, no new agency will deliver at the scale Wales needs.
The lesson is clear: The constraint is not the absence of delivery structures, it is the poor integration across Wales’s delivery capability and the lack of focus on innovative financing as a way to unlock and accelerate housing delivery where high construction costs remain a serious inhibitor to growth.
The risk: creating structure without capacity
The first test of any new agency will come within 12 months of the election. If no additional homes are being delivered by then, the agency risks becoming an early political liability rather than an asset.
There is a real risk that a new development agency, if not carefully designed, could:
Duplicate existing functions;
Centralise decision-making without increasing delivery;
Add complexity and bureaucracy to an already fragmented system; and
Delay progress while new governance structures are established.
In short, we risk reorganising the system rather than accelerating delivery.
A different approach: build on what already works
The lesson from other nations is instructive. Scotland's approach to establishing New Homes Scotland — piloting delivery alongside agency formation rather than waiting for structures to mature before projects begin — reflects a hard-won lesson: institutions are only as good as the projects they are built around. Wales, crucially, has a head start.
Rather than starting from scratch, Wales already has the building blocks of a functioning delivery system. The question is not whether to create something new, but how to integrate and accelerate what already exists.
Tirion Homes was originally established by Welsh Government to test a new funding model that: leverages institutional investment against long-term rental income; uses mixed-tenure cross-subsidy to support affordability without grant dependency; and focuses on long-term financial sustainability to maximise private investment. That model has been proven in practice.
When coupled with the Welsh Government's Land Division and the Development Bank of Wales's developing finance capability for housing, this already aligns closely with the principles being discussed for a new development agency's housing remit. The infrastructure, in other words, is not hypothetical; it exists, it is operational, and it is delivering.
This creates a clear and immediate opportunity. Rather than waiting for a new agency to be designed, legislated for, staffed and matured before meaningful delivery begins, Wales can act now. Existing delivery capability can be deployed on live projects from day one. Those projects can then be used to pilot and stress-test policy ambition in the real world. Institutional capability and resilience can be built alongside delivery, not ahead of it.
This approach does three things that matter politically: it reduces risk, accelerates output, and ensures that any new agency is shaped by real delivery experience rather than by theory. The next Senedd will be judged on homes built, not on the elegance of the structures created to build them. Starting with delivery and building the agency around it is the surest way to meet that test.
What a new development agency must get right
If a new agency is established, its success will depend on a small number of critical principles:
1. Focus on outcomes, not inputs
The primary measure must be the number of high quality homes delivered, at pace and scale rather than processes and institutional structures. This will require a fundamental change in attitude to risk and a willingness by Government to empower existing organisations to use a greater array of financial instruments to unlock private investment opportunities for all tenures of housing. This will be the bedrock upon which the new Agency can be built.
2. An integrated delivery model
No single approach will meet housing need. Wales needs a delivery toolbox that includes:
Experienced personnel with expertise in delivering complex projects;
A focus on mixed-tenure regeneration;
Institutional investment models like Tirion;
A suite of private finance models suitable for different scales of projects;
A suite of public sector instruments to underpin risk and reduce cost of finance;
Public-private partnerships designed to deliver a long-term pipeline of projects whether that be with developers, contractors and/or funders.
Grant-funded social housing targeting those in most need.
The new development agency will require as many of these elements in place as possible if it is to avoid a hiatus in what is already a low threshold of delivery.
3. A focus on private capital
Public funding can only meet a fraction of the growing demand/need. The role of the agency should be to:
Reduce pre-construction risk through acquisition and preparation of sites;
Unlock sites by underwriting risk to allow private finance to participate; and
Maximise institutional investment by focussing on a pipeline of major projects.
4. Prioritise pipeline and certainty of delivery
In addition to maximising institutional investment, a visible, long-term pipeline is essential to:
Increase contractor capacity;
Support SME growth through supply chains;
Underpin investment in skills and modern methods of construction.
5. Integrate land, expertise and funding
The agency can build on the establishment of the Land Division, Development Bank of Wales and Tirion over the last decade or so. Delivery is successful when land, expertise and finance are aligned, and integration is critical.
The role Tirion Homes can play
Tirion Homes sits at the intersection of public policy and private delivery. Our model demonstrates that:
It is possible to reduce reliance on grant while maintaining affordability;
Institutional investment can be aligned with long-term social outcomes; and
Mixed-tenure delivery can increase supply across all housing sectors.
This places Tirion in a strong position to:
Support the early phases of a new development agency;
Act as a pilot for accelerated delivery on public land;
Work with Land Division to maintain delivery momentum on existing projects;
Work with DBoW on a suite of new financial instruments; and
Help translate policy ambition into scalable delivery models.
Conclusion: from ambition to action
The renewed focus on a national development agency reflects an important shift in the debate. It signals that Wales is ready to think more seriously about how we deliver, not just what we want to deliver.
The priority now must be made clear: simplicity, scale and speed must inform the creation of a new agency and momentum on existing projects must be maintained.
If we build on proven models, unlock institutional capital, and focus relentlessly on outcomes, Wales can:
Deliver more homes more quickly;
Make better use of public funding targeting those most in need;
Create high-quality, sustainable communities;
At Tirion Homes, we believe the foundations for a successful new agency already exist following the creation of Land Divion, Development Bank of Wales and Tirion itself. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to continue to deliver new projects creating a portfolio and delivery infrastructure that can be adopted by the new agency.
The next Senedd has a genuine opportunity to be the administration that turned Wales's housing crisis around. That will not happen through a new agency alone, it will happen through early, decisive action on delivery, building institutional confidence and momentum from the first day.
The foundations are already in place. The question is whether Wales has the ambition to use them.
