Solihull Regeneration & Investment Briefing

Funding, places and delivery. A briefing for the organisations bringing forward homes and regeneration across Solihull and the UK Central growth area.

Dates and decisions to watch

Figures in this briefing cover different programmes, geographies and periods. They should not be added into a single borough investment total.

The funding landscape

Up to £46 billion over ten years

Homes England and its subsidiary, the National Housing Bank, have up to £46 billion to deploy across England to 2036. These are the principal streams. [12]

The joint Investment Prospectus, published on 31 March 2026 ahead of the Bank's opening on 1 April, brings grant, land and finance into one framework. The Bank aims to attract more than £50 billion of additional private capital over the decade.

*The prospectus describes the agency's share as £3.1bn, subject to final confirmation. These are programme envelopes, not a ring-fenced allocation to Solihull.

Programme milestones

Grant, land and finance (products and routes)

Which support fits a scheme depends less on its size than on what is holding it up: a funding gap, a difficult site, or the tenure of the homes to be delivered. [12]

Two grant routes in the West Midlands. Land, remediation and infrastructure money is normally expected to come first through WMCA's integrated settlement and devolved housing and land funds — as it did for both Kingshurst and the Simon Digby site. Social and Affordable Homes Programme grant remains a Homes England decision. The National Housing Bank makes its own finance decisions while working alongside the agency. [12,14]

Regional routes: West Midlands

Regional routes: see regions/west-midlands.md for the Combined Authority, the integrated settlement, WMCA's devolved housing and land funds, the SAHP first wave and its regional estimate (MHCLG's published £409m / c.3,200 homes), the West Midlands Spatial Development Strategy, the Birmingham East Mayoral Development Corporation, regional ambitions and the Construction Technical Excellence College.

For a Solihull scheme, the first conversation depends on the funding gap. A regional headline figure is not a borough award.

Solihull and the SAHP first wave. The 25 August 2026 Homes England release gives no West Midlands or Solihull figure of its own; several national strategic partners (Orbit, headquartered in Coventry; Places for People; Sanctuary; Vistry) have a regional presence, but none of their national totals is a Solihull allocation. Vistry is the contractor at Simon Digby, delivered through the devolved funds route rather than a strategic-partnership SAHP award. MHCLG's separate release of 24 August 2026 does publish a West Midlands regional estimate — £409m / c.3,200 homes — but this too is a regional estimate, not a borough award, and does not break down to Solihull. [13,16,45]

Who decides what (decisions and public contacts)

1. Homes England / National Housing Bank — Final SAHP funding and contractual decisions; the Bank assesses its finance investments. [12,14]
2. West Midlands Combined Authority — Regional priorities, tenure mix and priority corridors; devolved housing and land funds (used at both Kingshurst and Simon Digby); Birmingham East Mayoral Development Corporation; Spatial Development Strategy. [16,9,10]
3. Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council — Local housing need, planning authority, council land; accountable body for Pride in Place and the Impact Fund; lead partner at Kingshurst and Simon Digby; UK Central / Arden Cross partner authority. [1,9,10]
4. Arden Cross Ltd — Delivery vehicle for the Arden Cross / HS2 Interchange masterplan, formed by landowners Birmingham City Council, Coleshill Estate and Packington Estate. Not a Solihull Council company. [17]
5. Chelmsley Wood East Neighbourhood Board — Shapes and signs off the phase-two Pride in Place Plan; council accountability and national programme rules still apply. Chair: Reverend Neil Roberts BEM. [2,3,4]
6. Solihull Community Housing (SCH) — Arm's-length management organisation for the council's housing stock; new-build delivery partner at Kingshurst and on smaller sites; shares the CSW-JETS procurement portal with the council. [18,6]

Public routes for the next conversation

A useful first enquiry names the site, landowner, proposed use, delivery lead, funding gap and next decision.

Accessing programme grant: a route for smaller providers

• Continuous Market Engagement — Open for individual schemes and portfolios while funding remains available. Designed to accommodate smaller partners, new entrants and complex projects. [21]
• Strategic partnerships — Programme-level allocations. The initial bidding round closed on 15 April 2026; future rounds will be announced. [14]

Before a grant application

Organisations need Homes England Investment Partner qualification to receive grant. WMCA's published mayoral strategic priorities seek approximately 60% Social Rent through SAHP bids in the seven boroughs. [15]

Solihull's own planning-led affordable housing policy is materially higher and older than that regional floor: Policy P4 of the adopted Solihull Local Plan (December 2013) sets a 40% affordable housing target, carried forward as Policy P4A in the 2020 Draft Local Plan Review, which expected allocated sites to deliver 2,108 affordable dwellings and the UK Central / Arden Oak area a further 1,096. The Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (2019) put annual affordable housing need at 578 dwellings, 90% of it for rent. Both the 2,108/1,096 site trajectory and the 2019 HEDNA figures pre-date the 2026 Local Plan Review and are not verified against any more recent evidence base. [23]

Places and programmes (borough programmes)

Arden Cross / UK Central — around 2,000 homes in the HS2 Interchange masterplan

Arden Cross is the borough's largest single development ambition: a £3.2bn masterplan around the HS2 Interchange station, the NEC and Birmingham Airport, covering land assembled by Birmingham City Council, Coleshill Estate and Packington Estate through the delivery vehicle Arden Cross Ltd. Published figures are around 2,000 new homes and 2.65m sq ft (245,000 sq m) of commercial space, alongside retail and leisure. The masterplan is divided into Phase One (to 2026), Phase Two (2026–2030) and Phase Three (from 2030). The land-release date is now confirmed by the Department for Transport following the HS2 Reset announcement: development land around the HS2 Interchange Station will be available from 2030, which WMCA describes as clearing the path for the Arden Cross HealthTech Campus — the first phase of the wider masterplan — to move into detailed planning, with Arden Cross Ltd, Muse and the University of Warwick developing a joint masterplan and engaging potential partners and occupiers. [17,24,44]

Treat the homes number with care. WMCA's own release says only "thousands of new homes" and "tens of thousands of jobs". The figure of around 2,000 homes comes from the masterplan as published; Solihull's withdrawn 2020 Draft Submission Local Plan instead describes Arden Cross as providing up to 5,000 homes with 2,500 delivered within the plan period. These are different documents from different dates with different horizons and none is a consented scheme figure — not verified. No planning application has been determined for the HS2 Interchange land itself; what has been consented nearby is a separate £95m multi-storey car park for the station. [17,24,44]

Solihull town centre — Holbeche Place, around 1,600 homes across the masterplan

Habiko (an affordable-housing joint venture between Pension Insurance Corporation, Muse and Homes England) is delivering the redevelopment of the Mell Square area under the Holbeche Place masterplan. Phase one is around 350 build-to-rent apartments, already under way. Phase two — 228 affordable rental apartments at around 20% below local market rates — was granted planning permission on 20 July 2026. Graham Construction is preparing demolition of the Mell Square car park. The masterplan ambition across all phases is around 1,600 homes; only phases one and two have consent. [8]

Kingshurst Village Centre — 78 homes in the masterplan, Phase 2 approved 18 September 2026

Kingshurst is the third North Solihull local centre to be regenerated, after Chelmund's Cross and Smith's Wood. The masterplan totals 78 sustainable homes plus a 1,600 sq m community, health and wellbeing hub and 1,500 sq m of retail. Phase 1 delivered "award-winning affordable homes" (reported as 25 net-zero-carbon homes managed by Solihull Community Housing; not verified against a council decision report). Cabinet approved Phase 2, worth £23.9m, on 18 September 2026: 6 further homes, a new Community, Health and Retail building, a new vicarage and infrastructure works including a new main road. Phase 2 funding includes £8m from WMCA (approved July 2026) and £1.05m from the government's Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2), alongside council investment; construction is expected to start before the end of 2026. [10,25,26]

Chelmsley Wood — Simon Digby, 177 homes, 100% affordable

Planning permission was granted on 19 March 2026 for 177 new homes on the former Simon Digby School site between the A452 Chester Road and the M6, delivered by Vistry Group as a 100% affordable scheme: two, three and four-bedroom family homes and one-bedroom maisonettes, built using modern methods of construction (off-site timber frame, air source heat pumps, solar PV). The scheme is backed by £2.97m from WMCA's devolved housing and land funds, plus separate WMCA funding for feasibility and masterplanning. This sits within, but is a different programme from, the separate Chelmsley Wood town centre masterplan (led with architects BDP) and the Chelmsley Wood East Pride in Place programme — do not conflate the three. [9]

Completed context

North Solihull's regeneration programme (Chelmsley Wood, Kingshurst & Fordbridge, Smith's Wood) has delivered more than 1,710 new homes across 40 sites since 2005. Treat as delivered context, not live pipeline. [27]

Pride in Place: one phase-two neighbourhood, board still forming

Solihull has a single named Pride in Place neighbourhood: Chelmsley Wood East, confirmed against MHCLG's phase 2 place-selection methodology note, which lists "Solihull | 1 | Chelmsley Wood East." [4]

Checked against the other two national lists as well. Solihull appears on neither MHCLG's phase 1 place-selection note (the 75 town-level places) nor the phase 2 expansion note published 20 March 2026 (the 40 additional neighbourhoods, which brought second and third places to Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton). Chelmsley Wood East is Solihull's only Pride in Place place, and the only national deadline that applies to the borough is 30 November 2026. [42,43]

The Chelmsley Wood East boundary is defined against the new ward boundaries; a boundary map is published as a PDF on the council's Pride in Place page. [1]

National milestones that apply

As a phase-two place, Chelmsley Wood East's ten-year Pride in Place Plan must go to government for assessment and approval by 30 November 2026 under the national delivery guidance, with delivery anticipated from 2027. Boards must have at least eight members and at least 51% of members should live or work locally; Chelmsley Wood East's fourteen-member board, once the Chair is added, comfortably clears both tests on the numbers published. [28,29]

Bring a project that can be delivered

• Need, ownership and consent — Who benefits, land control, delivery lead, consents and dependencies.
• Capital and continuing costs — Works, contingency, asset owner, operating budget and maintenance.

No Solihull entry in either Impact Fund determination

The Pride in Place Impact Fund grant determinations for 2025/26 (signed 29 September 2025) and 2026/27 (signed 8 April 2026) were both checked directly against their Annex A local authority lists on GOV.UK. Solihull does not appear in either list. Neighbouring West Midlands authorities that do appear include Birmingham and Coventry (2025/26 list). This is a material finding: unlike several other boroughs in this series, Solihull has no separate Impact Fund allocation to distribute alongside its main Pride in Place award. [30,31]

Local investment and project calls: different pots, different decisions

The Pride in Place Impact Fund does not include Solihull

As set out above, Solihull is absent from both the 2025/26 and 2026/27 Impact Fund Annex A lists, so there is no Solihull Impact Fund line to add here. [30,31]

Do not add these figures together. They are different programmes, geographies and periods, funding different things (gap funding, community infrastructure, place-based regeneration), and several relate to the same Kingshurst site.

Homes, partners and local need

What the evidence base says

The Solihull Housing Strategy 2023–2032 sets a vision that everyone in the borough can access housing at the point of need with opportunities for sustainable homes in thriving communities. Its evidence base draws on the 2019 Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA), which found a need for 578 affordable dwellings a year, 90% of them for rent. Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2022 the council reports 1,000 new-build affordable homes delivered, including 586 for rent. [23,34]

The planning-led affordable housing requirement

Policy P4 of the adopted Solihull Local Plan (December 2013), continuing an approach first set out in Policy H4 of the 2006 Unitary Development Plan, requires 40% affordable housing on qualifying sites — one of the higher borough-wide affordable percentages in this series and well above WMCA's regional c.60%-of-SAHP-bids Social Rent floor, which is a different measure (tenure mix within grant-funded schemes, not a site-level planning target). The 2020 Draft Local Plan Review carried the same 40% figure forward as Policy P4A and projected 2,108 affordable dwellings from allocated sites plus a further 1,096 from the UK Central / Arden Oak area — figures that pre-date the 2026 Local Plan Review and are not verified against any updated trajectory. [23]

The statutory position now

Solihull's adopted Local Plan is from 2013; a Draft Submission version prepared around 2020 was not adopted. Following a ministerial letter of 11 December 2025 and a Planning Inspectorate advisory visit, the council opened an Issues and Options consultation for a new Local Plan Review 2026–2043, running 30 January – 16 March 2026. The housing figure is now confirmed from the council's own consultation document, not estate-agency commentary. The Issues and Options Consultation (January 2026) states that the 2020 withdrawn plan was based on a Local Housing Need of 816 dwellings per annum, making provision for a revised requirement of 15,873 dwellings over a 17-year plan period; under the updated standard method the borough's Local Housing Need rises to 1,331 dpa, and "based on a plan period of 18 years, the housing requirement would be 23,958 dwellings" (1,331 × 18). That is an increase of about 63% on the previous requirement. The council is explicit that while the Local Housing Need figure is certain, how it is influenced by the West Midlands Spatial Development Strategy is not: the SDS may give Solihull a lower figure, may conclude the borough should meet only its own needs, or may ask it to provide for more. A Draft Submission Plan is expected in autumn 2026. Until the new plan is adopted, the 2013 Local Plan and its 40% affordable target remain the statutory development plan. [5,6,7,41]

Named local delivery

These are examples of local activity, not a complete provider list or evidence of a new SAHP award. Seven first-wave SAHP strategic partners (Orbit, Platform, Bromford Flagship Livewest, Midland Heart, Sanctuary, Places for People, Vistry) have a West Midlands presence per regions/west-midlands.md; only Vistry has a named, dated Solihull scheme (Simon Digby) in this research, and that scheme is funded through WMCA's devolved route, not a strategic-partnership SAHP award. [13]

Delivery and the supply chain

Finding the actual route to work

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council's own procurement page names CSW-JETS — the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Joint e-Tendering System, built on the In-Tend platform — as its e-tendering portal, accessed at in-tendhost.co.uk/csw-jets or sell2.in-tend.co.uk/midlands/home. This matches the regional page's note that Solihull shares CSW-JETS with Coventry and other Warwickshire authorities; it is also used by Solihull Community Housing. [6]

The council's Rules for Contracts (issue date February 2026) set out the Procurement Act 2023 financial thresholds that apply to Solihull's contracts from 24 February 2025: works £4,327,500+, light-touch regime contracts £552,950+, supplies and services £173,100+ (all above-threshold, revised every two years). Below these, the council's own rules require competitive tenders for contracts of £50,000 or more, competitive quotations for contracts of £10,000–£49,999 (advisable but not mandatory below £10,000), all published and managed via CSWJETS. Above-threshold notices also appear on the national Find a Tender service; below-threshold notices on Contracts Finder. [6,37]

The council publishes a contract register and purchase-order data through its procurement transparency page. A separate forward procurement pipeline document was not found in this research. [6]

A funding announcement does not itself create an open invitation to tender. At Kingshurst and Simon Digby, delivery partners are already appointed (Solihull Community Housing; Vistry Group); supply-chain work on those schemes flows through those organisations, not through a fresh council tender.

Skills and delivery capacity

Solihull is not the region's Construction Technical Excellence College host. As set out in regions/west-midlands.md, that designation went to Dudley College of Technology, announced 12 August 2025, with delivery from the Construction Apprenticeship Training Centre in Brierley Hill and the Advance Centre in Dudley. Solihull employers and learners are served through the wider West Midlands college network rather than a borough-hosted CTEC. [38]

Solihull College & University Centre, Blossomfield Road, Solihull B91 1SB (0121 678 7000), delivers construction and the built environment locally: a "Get into Construction" pre-employment course, bricklaying and carpentry & joinery from Level 1 through apprenticeship, a Construction Quantity Surveying Technician apprenticeship (day-release at Blossomfield, employer-based the rest of the week) and a Civil Engineering Technician apprenticeship aligned to the BTEC Level 3 Civil Engineering Diploma. Apprenticeships require a minimum 20% off-the-job training; assessor-coaches build End Point Assessment portfolios through workplace visits. [39]

Sources

Research checked on 19 September 2026.

1. Solihull MBC, Pride in Place · source
2. Solihull MBC, "Independent chair sought for £20 million investment in Chelmsley Wood East" · source
3. Solihull MBC, "Neighbourhood Board Chair appointed for Chelmsley Wood Pride in Place" · source
4. MHCLG, Pride in Place Programme phase 2: methodology note (updated 9 March 2026; table entry "Solihull | 1 | Chelmsley Wood East") · source
5. Solihull MBC, Emerging Local Plan · source
6. Solihull MBC, Tenders and procurement · source ; Our tendering process · source
7. Solihull MBC, "Solihull Local Plan – update 23 January 2026" · source
8. BDC Magazine, "Solihull Approves 228 Affordable Homes as Town Centre Regeneration Gains Momentum", July 2026 · source
9. Solihull MBC, "Solihull Council partners with Vistry to deliver 177 sustainable new homes" · source
10. Solihull MBC, "Cabinet approval clears way for construction to begin on landmark Kingshurst regeneration project", 18 September 2026 · source
11. WMCA, "Public to have their say on where thousands of new homes should be built" (West Midlands Spatial Development Strategy consultation, opened 3 November 2025) · source ; see regions/west-midlands.md
12. Homes England / National Housing Bank, Investment Prospectus 2026 · source
13. Homes England, "Homes England and government confirm strategic partners...", 25 August 2026 · source
14. Homes England, SAHP 2026 to 2036 guidance · source
15. Homes England, SAHP 2026–2036: strategic priorities in established mayoral strategic authority areas · source
16. WMCA, Investing with us (Single Commissioning Framework, devolved funds, invest@wmca.org.uk) · source
17. Invest in UK Central / Solihull MBC, UK Central Brochure · source ; Contact Us · source
18. Solihull Community Housing, About us · source
19. Solihull Community Housing, Contact Centre · source ; Solihull Home Options · source
20. Solihull MBC, Contact us · source
21. Homes England, SAHP Continuous Market Engagement route · source
22. Homes England, SAHP Strategic Partnership route · source
23. Solihull Local Plan (Draft Submission) 2020, Policy P4A and affordable housing trajectory; adopted Solihull Local Plan, December 2013, Policy P4 · source ; Solihull HEDNA 2019 summary via Solihull Housing Strategy Executive Summary · source
24. Construction Review Online, "Masterplan for Arden Cross scheme unveiled" (Arden Cross Ltd, phasing and scale) · source ; Turley, Arden Cross project page · source
25. Invest in UK Central, "Solihull Council approves next stage of Kingshurst Village Centre Regeneration" · source ; WMCA, "Kingshurst regeneration project secures additional government funds" · source
26. WMCA, Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2) award to Kingshurst, 25 October 2023 (via source 25); Solihull MBC, Kingshurst Village Centre Regeneration · source
27. Invest in UK Central, North Solihull · source ; Bea Landscape Design, North Solihull Regeneration · source
28. MHCLG, Pride in Place programme delivery guidance · source
29. MHCLG, Pride in Place programme prospectus · source
30. MHCLG, Pride in Place Impact Fund grant determinations 2025–26 (signed 29 September 2025), Annex A · source
31. MHCLG, Pride in Place Impact Fund grant determinations 2026–27 (signed 8 April 2026), Annex A · source
32. Solihull MBC, "Nearly £400,000 of community funding now available" (CIL Neighbourhood Proportion) · source
33. House of Commons Library, "Local growth funds" (UKSPF successor, Local Growth Fund for Mayoral Strategic Authorities) · source
34. Solihull MBC, Solihull Housing Strategy Executive Summary (2023–2032) · source
35. Superseded and no longer cited in this edition. Hunters, "The 2026 local plan launch: Identifying Solihull's next property growth hotspots" (press) · source — was the brief's original source for the 23,958-dwelling figure. Replaced by source 41, the council's own Issues and Options Consultation document, which states the same figure. Retained here so the numbering is stable.
36. Solihull Community Housing, New Build development · source
37. Solihull MBC, Rules for Contracts, issue date February 2026 · source
38. Dudley College of Technology, National Centre of Technical Excellence designation, 12 August 2025; see regions/west-midlands.md · source
39. Solihull College & University Centre, Construction courses and apprenticeships · source · source
40. Solihull MBC, "Local community champions appointed to Chelmsley Wood Neighbourhood Board", 17 July 2026 · source
41. Solihull MBC, Local Plan Review 2026–2043, Issues and Options Consultation, January 2026 (paras 63–66: Local Housing Need 1,331 dpa, previous 816 dpa, 23,958 dwellings over an 18-year plan period, SDS caveat) · source ; consultation summary · source
42. MHCLG, Pride in Place Programme phase 1: place selection methodology note (no Solihull entry) · source
43. MHCLG, Pride in Place Programme phase 2 expansion: place selection methodology note, published 20 March 2026 (no Solihull entry) · source
44. WMCA, "HS2 Land Release Clears Path for First Phase of Arden Cross" (DfT confirmation of land availability from 2030; Arden Cross HealthTech Campus; Arden Cross Ltd, Muse and the University of Warwick) · source
45. MHCLG, "Historic council housebuilding comeback to help families into secure homes", 24 August 2026 — regional funding breakdown of estimated first-wave SAHP Strategic Partnership spend and homes by established mayoral strategic authority: Greater Manchester £529m / c.4,400 homes; West Midlands £409m / c.3,200 homes; North East £445m / c.3,400 homes; West Yorkshire £441m / c.4,000 homes; Liverpool City Region £380m / c.3,100 homes; South Yorkshire £249m / c.2,200 homes · source

Research notes

Verified from primary or council sources

• Chelmsley Wood East confirmed as Solihull's sole phase-two Pride in Place neighbourhood by reading MHCLG's phase 2 place-selection methodology note directly: "Solihull | 1 | Chelmsley Wood East." [4]
• Both Pride in Place Impact Fund determinations (2025/26 and 2026/27) were read directly against their Annex A local authority lists on GOV.UK. Solihull does not appear in either — a material negative finding, not an absence of research. [30,31]
• The Chelmsley Wood East Chair appointment (Reverend Neil Roberts BEM, 21 May 2026) and the 17 July 2026 Neighbourhood Board appointment of nine named community champions plus four ex-officio members were both read from council news releases. [2,3,40]
• Kingshurst Phase 2 Cabinet approval on 18 September 2026 (£23.9m, including £8m WMCA funding) was read from the council's own news release, dated one day before this brief's research date. [10]
• Simon Digby (177 homes, 100% affordable, Vistry, £2.97m WMCA gap funding, planning granted 19 March 2026) was read from the council's own news release. [9]
• Procurement thresholds (works £4,327,500+; light-touch £552,950+; supplies and services £173,100+; quotations £10,000–£49,999; tenders £50,000+) were read first-hand from the council's Rules for Contracts PDF, issue date February 2026. [37]
• CSW-JETS confirmed as Solihull's e-tendering portal from the council's own tenders and procurement page, consistent with the regional page. [6]
• Solihull's absence from the Pride in Place Impact Fund, and Policy P4's 40% affordable housing requirement (2013, carried forward as Policy P4A in the 2020 Draft Local Plan Review), are the two most consequential local findings in this brief.

Open items

• The outcome of Solihull's Levelling Up Fund Round 2 bid (c.£12m sought for Kingshurst) is still not verified. Searched the GOV.UK LUF Round 2 successful-bids dataset and technical note, the 19 January 2023 written ministerial statement, and Solihull's own news and funding pages; Solihull does not appear among the successful bids, but no council or government statement confirming rejection was found either, so this is treated as unconfirmed rather than reported as a refusal. What is confirmed is that Kingshurst Phase 2 was ultimately funded from WMCA (£8m), BLRF2 (£1.05m) and council investment, not from LUF2.
• Kingshurst Phase 1's reported 25 net-zero-carbon homes figure comes from a Solihull Community Housing summary, not a numbered council decision report.
• Arden Cross homes number remains unreconciled: around 2,000 in the published masterplan against "up to 5,000, with 2,500 in the plan period" in the withdrawn 2020 Draft Submission Local Plan, while WMCA's own 2026 release says only "thousands of new homes". No planning application has been determined for the HS2 Interchange land itself. Searched WMCA news, Arden Cross Ltd/Turley material and the Solihull examination library.
• Whether the 2020 Draft Local Plan Review's 2,108/1,096 affordable-homes trajectory and the 2019 HEDNA's 578-homes-a-year figure have been superseded by newer evidence feeding the 2026 Local Plan Review is not established.
• No Solihull-specific UKSPF successor (Local Growth Fund) allocation or open call for 2026/27 was found; this money is understood to sit with WMCA as the Mayoral Strategic Authority rather than being allocated directly to the borough.
• A forward procurement pipeline document for Solihull was not found; the council's contract register and CSW-JETS are the published routes.
• The second West Midlands Construction Technical Excellence College reported in 2026 press (see regions/west-midlands.md) is not verified against a DfE list and in any case is not Solihull-hosted.

Blocked or failed URLs

• None. All primary URLs cited in this brief (GOV.UK Pride in Place phase lists, Impact Fund determinations, Homes England guidance, Solihull MBC news and policy pages, the Issues and Options Consultation PDF and the WMCA Arden Cross release) returned usable content via WebFetch, curl or ScrapingBee; no 403s or other error codes were encountered in this verification run.

Verification 19 Sep 2026

• The Local Plan Review housing figure is upgraded from estate-agency press to the council's own document, and the "not verified" removed. Solihull's Issues and Options Consultation (January 2026) was fetched and read: Local Housing Need rises from 816 dpa (the withdrawn 2020 plan, which provided for 15,873 dwellings over 17 years) to 1,331 dpa under the updated standard method, giving 23,958 dwellings over an 18-year 2026–2043 plan period — about 63% more than before. The council's own SDS caveat is quoted rather than paraphrased. The Hunters commentary is no longer load-bearing. [41]
• Pride in Place checked against all three national lists, not one. Solihull appears on the phase 2 note only — not on the phase 1 note and not on the phase 2 expansion note of 20 March 2026, which gave second and third places to the other five WMCA boroughs with Pride in Place areas. Chelmsley Wood East is Solihull's only place and 30 November 2026 its only national deadline. This makes the brief's existing "one neighbourhood" framing a verified negative rather than an unexamined assumption. [42,43]
• Arden Cross updated with a material new fact: the Department for Transport has confirmed, following the HS2 Reset announcement, that development land around the HS2 Interchange Station will be available from 2030, clearing the path for the Arden Cross HealthTech Campus to move into detailed planning, with Arden Cross Ltd, Muse and the University of Warwick on a joint masterplan. Previously the brief gave 2030 as an expectation. [44]
• Arden Cross homes figure newly marked not verified. The brief carried "around 2,000 homes" without qualification; the withdrawn 2020 Draft Submission Local Plan says up to 5,000 with 2,500 in period, and WMCA's own 2026 release says only "thousands". Flagged in the scheme section and the delivery table, with the note that the only nearby consent is a separate £95m multi-storey car park.
• Levelling Up Fund Round 2 open item worked and left open, with the search recorded. Solihull does not appear in the GOV.UK Round 2 successful-bids dataset, but no council or government statement confirming rejection was found, so it stays unconfirmed rather than being written up as a refusal. Added what is confirmed: Kingshurst Phase 2 was funded from WMCA, BLRF2 and council money, not LUF2.
• Impact Fund negative finding re-checked by reading both Annex A tables in full: each lists 94 local authorities (93 at £750,000, one at £1,500,000). Solihull is in neither, and so is Dudley. The brief's statement that "neighbouring West Midlands authorities that do appear include Birmingham and Coventry" is correct and could now be extended to Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. [30,31]
• SAHP milestone line re-checked: the partner table sums to £9,584.1m and 73,617 homes across 33 partners, no total stated in the release — the brief's wording was already correct. Procurement thresholds and CSW-JETS re-checked against the Rules for Contracts; unchanged.
• SAHP first-wave regional estimate added. MHCLG's release of 24 August 2026, "Historic council housebuilding comeback to help families into secure homes," publishes a regional funding breakdown giving the West Midlands an estimated £409m and around 3,200 homes for first-wave Strategic Partnership spend — MHCLG's own regional estimate, not a Solihull award. [45]
• Citation numbers: all [n] resolve; four new entries added (41–44) without renumbering, and no collisions.

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