Frequently asked questions
The Goram Homes team was established in 2019 by Bristol City Council to build new homes in Bristol. You can find out more about our plans by looking at our Business Plan and the Goram Homes’ team here.
Bristol City Council is our sole shareholder, but we are run as a commercial enterprise, with social objectives.
We form partnerships with private developers to deliver mixed developments of market sale and affordable homes.
Our primary source of sites is Bristol City Council. Once sites are agreed for development, Goram Homes acquires them from Bristol City Council at a fair market rate, using the most suitable funding mechanism for the site.
Our model allows Bristol City Council to generate a significant land value and a 50% share of profit – generated by private housing, affordable homes, and any commercial property.
Any profits could be kept to fund more new homes.
Bristol City Council investment is agreed on a project-by-project basis, limited to agreed overall levels of investment, minimising financial risk for the council.
Goram Homes is governed by our Board of Directors who are appointed by Bristol City Council. Our Business Plan is approved annually by our shareholder Bristol City Council.
Goram Homes will build all types of homes, depending on the nature of the site, what homes already exist in the area and the need or demand for new homes. Our developments will include homes of different sizes for market sale, social rent and affordable home ownership. Any affordable housing is purchased at market value by either a housing association or Bristol City Council.
Our developments will always comply with the policies set out in Bristol City Council’s Local Plan.
‘Affordability’ is a technical term defined in National Policy as social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market. Eligibility for these homes is determined by local incomes and local house prices.
You can find out more about affordable homes in Bristol here.
Goram Homes always aspires to exceed planning policy in terms of delivery of affordable homes. Across our current programme we have a target of delivering 48% of our homes as affordable homes as outlined in our Business Plan.
Affordable housing delivery on our sites will be secured through two routes; affordable homes delivered as part of planning requirements; and those delivered in addition to planning requirements. These additional homes will usually require public subsidy from Homes England.
There may be times where design challenges or high service charge costs mean it isn’t appropriate to deliver affordable housing on site. Where this is the case, we will find another way of delivering the extra homes off-site.
The breakdown of affordable homes into different tenures is stipulated by Bristol City Council in its affordable housing policies. These policies state that 75% of these affordable homes must be delivered as Social Rent and 25% as Affordable Home Ownership (which includes Shared Ownership and First Homes).
The tenure split for any additional affordable homes we deliver will vary for each site and will depend on the viability of the development, the availability of funding and the Registered Provider buying the homes from Goram Homes.
You can find out more about the breakdown of affordable homes, by tenure, for each of our sites on our development map. Where projects that are still early in the development process, we have provided an estimate and will update our numbers as soon as they are available.
We believe that the climate emergency demands urgent action and leadership across the construction industry. We know that net zero operational carbon is possible, and we are committed to extending good practice to all our future work and leading the way.
Goram Homes is committed to delivering increased biodiversity and carbon neutral housing. We have adopted the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge Targets for operational energy use, embodied carbon, and water use reduction. We will also adopt the Building with Nature Standards – a framework of standards for good green infrastructure which encourages developers to create places that really deliver for people and wildlife.
Goram Homes works in partnership to build quality homes that create communities which are environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. Our values, reflect who we are and who we want to be:
- We are passionate about what we do
- We build partnerships with purpose
- We innovate to succeed
You can read more about our company values and objectives in our Business Plan.
