West Midlands Futures Fund opens £545m development call

The West Midlands Futures Fund has opened a new call for private development projects, putting around £545 million behind commercial, mixed-use and large residential schemes across the region.

The call went live on 8th October 2026 as part of the wider £3.8 billion Futures Fund. Developers and investors are being invited to bring forward projects capable of supporting economic growth, new homes and employment across the West Midlands.

The announcement is more than a conventional grant round. The fund brings together public investment bodies, local government and private capital in an attempt to unlock schemes which are viable in principle but need finance, infrastructure or risk-sharing to move from planning and land promotion into delivery.

West Midlands Futures Fund opens to private development

The West Midlands Combined Authority says the new call is seeking expressions of interest from private-sector developers for projects across the commercial, mixed-use and large-scale residential sectors.

Around £545 million of the West Midlands Futures Fund is currently allocated for such projects. That sits alongside a broader package of regional finance which includes an existing £300 million revolving fund and participation from institutions including Homes England, the National Wealth Fund, the British Business Bank, the Office for Investment and the West Midlands Pension Fund.

Mayor Richard Parker said the intention is to use public backing to reduce the barriers preventing otherwise worthwhile development from proceeding. He described the fund as providing the support the private sector needs to get spades in the ground.

That wording matters. The programme is not a planning permission mechanism and it does not override local development plans, environmental assessment or normal development-management requirements. Its purpose is financial and delivery-focused: to make projects capable of attracting investment and progressing through the remaining development process.

£400m is already allocated to affordable and social housing

The wider fund was launched with an initial value of £3.8 billion. The WMCA says more than £400 million of that has already been allocated to new affordable and social housing.

The authority also points to more than 7,000 homes contracted in the 12 months to April 2026, including almost 2,500 affordable or social-rent homes. Those figures describe the combined authority’s wider delivery programme rather than homes produced directly by today’s private-sector call.

That distinction is worth keeping clear. A large funding envelope does not equal an equivalent value of construction starting immediately. Projects still need land control, planning, technical approvals, procurement and a commercial model capable of satisfying whichever public or institutional funder is involved.

Planning Geek recently reported on registered providers increasing their development ambitions while requiring £54.7 billion of new borrowing. The same underlying issue is visible here: available capital can help delivery, but it does not remove planning risk, infrastructure requirements or viability constraints.

Digbeth is an early example of how the fund may work

The same announcement identifies a new Birmingham regeneration project as one of the schemes already entering the wider investment pipeline.

Homes England has selected Digbeth Loc Studios Ltd as preferred development partner, subject to contract and the standstill period, for a mixed-use creative neighbourhood at Fazeley Street in Digbeth.

Homes England says the project is intended to combine new homes, creative-sector activity, employment and investment while building on the area’s existing film and television cluster. The West Midlands material describes the project as a £35 million neighbourhood proposal.

Jo Nugent, Homes England’s Executive Director for the Midlands, said the partners want to create a place which celebrates Digbeth’s heritage while delivering new opportunities for people and businesses.

Again, preferred-partner status is not the same as planning approval. The project will still need to move through the relevant planning, design, land and delivery stages before homes or commercial space can be built.

Nearly £48m is also heading towards Black Country homes

The latest fund package also includes nearly £48 million from the WMCA for new homes across the Black Country.

Separate support is identified for the £24 million regeneration of Kingshurst Village Centre in North Solihull, where the current programme includes a community, health and retail building, six homes and a new vicarage, with work expected to start in December.

The fund is therefore operating at very different scales. Some interventions are large strategic programmes, while others are targeted pieces of regeneration or infrastructure intended to unlock wider investment.

For planning consultants, that means the relevant question is not simply whether a client can access a particular grant. It is whether a planning and development strategy can be structured so the project is sufficiently defined, deliverable and investment-ready to compete for support.

Transport funding is being used to unlock development sites

The Futures Fund is also increasingly tied to infrastructure. The WMCA says around £1.7 billion is now committed to transport projects including tram and rail schemes intended to unlock development around the Birmingham Sports Quarter and other growth locations.

That reflects a recurring problem in strategic development. Housing and employment sites can be allocated or even consented while remaining dependent on major transport, utility or remediation investment before meaningful construction can start.

Planning policy can identify where growth should go, but funding determines whether the supporting infrastructure is delivered at the right time. The strongest sites are therefore those where the planning case, phasing strategy and infrastructure finance can be assembled together rather than treated as separate exercises.

Planning Geek’s coverage of the first Homes England Place Delivery Agreement in Liverpool City Region shows a similar move towards public agencies coordinating investment, planning priorities and delivery capacity around major places rather than funding isolated schemes one by one.

Birmingham East is the scale of the wider ambition

The WMCA says the Futures Fund will play a significant role in financing the £11 billion Birmingham East Mayoral Development Corporation.

That programme is expected to support around 20,000 new homes and more than 50,000 jobs across east Birmingham. Those are programme ambitions, not today’s planning permissions or guaranteed delivery numbers.

It is nevertheless a useful indication of the scale at which mayoral development finance is now being assembled. Strategic planning, transport investment, land assembly and public finance are increasingly being brought into the same delivery structures.

For developers, that may create opportunities which did not exist where a difficult site was judged solely against its standalone appraisal. For local planning authorities, it also means greater pressure to align development-management decisions and infrastructure planning with regionally backed investment programmes.

What developers need before approaching the fund

The current call is aimed at schemes capable of driving economic growth. The regional material highlights office, hotel, employment, mixed-use and large residential development rather than small individual projects.

A credible proposal is therefore likely to need more than an attractive concept. Land position, planning status, site constraints, infrastructure requirements, development appraisal and delivery timetable will all affect whether a scheme can absorb public or institutional investment.

Where planning permission has not yet been secured, promoters should be clear about the route to consent and the risks which could change the project economics. Where permission already exists, the emphasis may instead be on outstanding conditions, section 106 obligations, infrastructure, remediation and funding gaps.

The practical value of the West Midlands Futures Fund will ultimately be judged by whether supported projects move into construction rather than remaining in an investment pipeline.

A development finance story as much as a planning story

The call arrives against a difficult market backdrop. Planning Geek has recently reported on planning delays approaching a year for SME housebuilders and on schemes where viability remains challenging even after permission has been secured.

That is why today’s announcement matters to planning practice. Development finance is increasingly one of the links between obtaining permission and actually delivering a site.

Public-sector investment cannot make an unsound planning case acceptable, but it can change the feasibility of infrastructure, remediation or phasing which might otherwise keep a policy-compliant development on paper.

The new call therefore gives developers another route to test whether a significant West Midlands project can attract the financial support needed to progress. The planning work still has to stand up, but the delivery conversation has become materially wider.

How to respond to the West Midlands Futures Fund call

The private-sector call for projects is now open. The WMCA says investors and developers can submit expressions of interest through the West Midlands site-selection platform.

Anyone considering an approach should read the current criteria and investment terms rather than assume that the £545 million represents conventional grant funding. Different projects may require different forms of public support, private capital and delivery partnership.

The wider message is clearer. The West Midlands is trying to assemble planning, infrastructure and investment around strategic schemes at regional scale. Today’s call is the point at which private developers are formally invited into that pipeline.

Whether the model succeeds will depend on what happens next: which projects are selected, what form the investment takes and, most importantly, whether those schemes move from prospectus to consent and from consent to construction.