Council Housebuilding Support Fund bidding round closes with £21.8m on offer to March 2029

The 2026 to 2027 bidding round of the Council Housebuilding Support Fund closed on 2 November 2026, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said in an update to its Capacity to Build guidance.

Homes England's application guidance gives the deadline as 2pm on 2 November. The fund, delivered with Homes England, pays for early-stage development work by councils in England outside London. Homes England said the bidding window opened on 21 September, when it announced a £21.8m boost to the fund.

That £21.8m is part of the wider £46m Capacity to Build package announced in August 2026, Homes England said, rather than a separate pot. According to the application guidance, the money is available until 31 March 2029 and is split evenly across the three financial years.

Shahi Islam, Director of Affordable Housing at Homes England, said: "The Council Housebuilding Support Fund is a strong example of how Homes England is enabling locally led housing delivery".

The fund

The maximum grant for a single proposal is £300,000, the guidance says. Grants cover pre-development work such as feasibility and viability studies, site investigations and technical due diligence, and pipeline development.

MHCLG said all grant funding is for the express purpose of helping councils bring forward large bids to the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), which the department describes as a 10-year, £39bn programme. The GOV.UK collection page says the fund is meant to help councils increase direct delivery, form partnerships and joint ventures with private registered providers or developers, and submit SAHP bids more quickly and at a bigger scale.

Councils that received grants in earlier rounds can apply again if they show new activities and sites. Successful applicants must sign a memorandum of understanding with MHCLG.

In 2025 to 2026 the fund gave grants to 44 councils, supporting SAHP bids covering about 11,500 homes, according to MHCLG.

Decision dates

The two GOV.UK sources differ on when councils will hear the outcome. Homes England's 21 September release said funding decisions would be made from December 2026, while the application guidance says applicants will hear whether they have been successful from November 2026.

Both agree on the next steps: further bidding windows are expected to open in April 2027 and April 2028.

Capacity to Build

MHCLG said it is investing a further £46m over three years in the renamed Capacity to Build programme, which runs from April 2026 to March 2029 and is delivered with Homes England and the Local Government Association (LGA). The programme was previously called the Council Housebuilding Skills and Capacity Programme and was renamed and expanded on 25 August 2026, following £17m invested in council skills and capacity since 2025.

The programme has three elements. Alongside the fund, the Council Housebuilding Support Service, delivered by the LGA, aims to provide up to 225 tailored support packages at no cost to councils over the three years. Councils receiving that support can also apply to the fund, but only for a separate issue.

The third element is an expanded Pathways to Planning graduate scheme, which now lets councils recruit graduates into surveying and construction project management roles as well as planning. The two new pathways aim to recruit up to 150 graduates between 2026 and 2029, with onboarding starting from early 2027.

The capacity funding was announced in a 25 August 2026 letter to all council leaders from Angela Rayner and Matthew Pennycook, which asked councils to raise their ambition for delivering new council homes.

Angela Rayner, Housing Secretary, said: "Councils will be at the heart of the biggest housebuilding revival in decades".

SAHP context

MHCLG said the first SAHP allocations gave 33 providers £9.58bn through Strategic Partnerships, with three councils awarded Strategic Partnership status with Homes England. The department said it expects more than half of SAHP delivery in London to come from councils.

The next Council Housebuilding Support Fund bidding window is expected to open in April 2027.