About us
English Partnerships is the national regeneration agency, supporting high quality sustainable growth in England. We are a non-departmental public body and our sponsor government department is Communities and Local Government (CLG).
We work with a wide range of partners including local authorities, the Housing Corporation, regional development agencies and the Commission for the Built Environment (CABE).
English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation are working with CLG to establish the proposed Homes and Communities Agency.
Our aims
Our overall aim is to achieve high-quality, well-designed, sustainable places for people to live, work and enjoy. For more information on how we achieve this please see ‘What we do’.
Our programmes are designed to:
- Increase the supply of high-quality affordable housing, and housing for key workers, in areas experiencing housing pressure in the wider south-east
- Make best use of the nation’s scarce supply of land by identifying previously-developed land and increasing its supply for development, particularly in the wider south-east
- Reduce the stock of low demand and abandoned housing in the Market Renewal Pathfinder areas and other areas suffering low demand for housing, whilst increasing the supply of new and refurbished high quality housing and amenities in those areas
- Deliver high-quality sustainable urban regeneration in areas experiencing economic restructuring
- Increase the quality and quantity of private-sector investment in housing and regeneration
- Set and promote best practice in urban design and construction standards across the regeneration and development industry
- Promote the use of Modern Methods of Construction where appropriate
- Improve regeneration skills.
Where we work
We work across the country, but our priority areas are:
- The 20% most deprived wards in the country, as defined by Communities and Local Government and currently adopted for a number of measures, such as the stamp duty exemptions
- The Coalfields
- Urban Regeneration Company areas
- Areas of major housing growth in the wider south east including, but going beyond, the four target areas (centred on Milton Keynes and the South Midlands, the London-Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough Corridor, Thames Gateway and Ashford)
- Housing Market Renewal areas, including Pathfinders
- The Northern Growth Corridor and other emerging cross-regional initiatives
- Strategic brownfield sites or hardcore brownfield land in, or adjacent to, any of the above priority areas or in areas of housing pressure or housing abandonment.