Development Manager – Social Housing - 37 hours

This is an exciting time to join our Strategic Housing & Delivery Service. We are looking for a passionate, driven housing delivery specialist with a social housing delivery background to help us unlock stalled sites, acquire land and buildings, and deliver new build council homes. This will help us sustainably and consistently grow our affordable housing delivery rates over the coming years.

Above all, we are looking for a dedicated individual that can help us assist the residents of Torbay in securing good quality, affordable housing. We seek a creative thinker, a problem solver, and someone who can utilise every tool at our disposal to deliver the homes our residents need.

Torbay is an incredible place to live and work, with stunning coastline, rolling hills, great transport links, and access to a wide range of facilities. However, we are currently facing a housing crisis, with many households unable to find or afford a home for private rent, and even fewer able to achieve homeownership.

As a result, demand for social housing is high, but there has been relatively little new supply coming through the planning system in recent years. Local households are finding it increasingly difficult to secure a good quality home that they can afford. Without access to sustainable housing, key local employers struggle to secure the staff they need to thrive and grow.

We are leading the way on a range of exciting and innovative programmes to help solve this situation. Our established Town Centre Regeneration Programme has secured its first planning consents at Union Square in Torquay and the former Crossways Centre in Paignton, which will see the Council deliver all 91 units of Extra Care Housing for Social Rent. Work is now underway to unlock the next two sites in these areas, which have the potential to deliver hundreds of homes in the coming years.

We are also progressing with our innovative ‘Hotels to Homes’ initiative, part of our wider Accommodation Repurposing Programme, which aims to convert, repurpose, and redevelop dilapidated former hotels into modern, high-quality social housing fit for the 21st Century.

To achieve our goals, we need to encourage developers to bring forward good quality, sustainable housing schemes on brownfield sites. We must identify more creative opportunities to deliver the homes that our local households need and maximise the supply of affordable homes generated through the planning system to support the Registered Provider sector in Torbay.

This post meets the requirements of the Public Services Network (PSN) and therefore will require a Basic Criminal Record Check. This will show any unspent convictions and conditional cautions. For an informal chat, please contact Sam Irving, Head of Strategic Housing & Delivery on 07972624806 or sam.irving@torbay.gov.uk. Interviews are expected to be conducted during the week commencing 2nd February 2025. This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Our adverts do sometimes close early, even where there’s a published deadline, so if you’re keen, please apply as soon as possible.

• Demonstrate your experience of leading new build social housing projects, from inception through to completion.
• Outline your experience of leading or working on regeneration projects that deliver mixed-use/residential development (or redevelopment).

• Outline your understanding of Torbay's approach to the delivery of homes, particularly social housing.
• Outline your approach to managing development viability, including your understanding of key benchmarks/viability metrics and provide an overview of your experience using specialist viability models or software.

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent); or minimum of 3 (preferably 5) years working in social housing delivery for a Local Authority or Registered Provider.
• Professional membership (or eligibility to become a member) with one of the following: RICS, CIH, APM, RTPI.