Partnership to Ignite new housing activity

Strata chief executive Jim Wren (left) and Southdale managing director Paul Moore

North West construction and development specialist Southdale has teamed up with luxury house builder Strata to launch an innovative new service to help clients deliver new schemes with little or no grant funding.

The new Ignite Homes Ltd company, the first of its kind in the UK, has been launched as a joint venture, aimed at driving a range of mixed tenure developments for registered providers, local authorities and arms length management organisations (ALMOs).

The combination of Southdale and Strata provides a financially robust operation, offering unrivalled expertise in public and private sector housing, as well as community-scale regeneration.

Ignite is led directly by some of the most senior managers in the two partner organisations, including Southdale’s Managing Director Paul Moore and Strata’s Chief Executive Jim Wren.

Paul Moore said: “We are very excited at the potential for Ignite to give a real boost to housing. Getting building started without funding is not easy, but we can use our experience to help clients get around the issue of a lack of grant availability and this partnership with Strata has the potential to make a big difference to home building.”

Jim Wren added: “This is something which we know clients need and want and we are confident that the potential for using Ignite to give housing development a real boost, by working around one of the biggest issues many of them have to face in their day to day work, will be as exciting to them as it is to us. We are proud to be linking our vast experience with that of Southdale for this innovative new venture, which we believe will be a market-leading initiative.”