South Yorkshire delivers £80 million in regional impact investments

South Yorkshire Pensions Authority (SYPA) has put its money where its mouth is with regards to place-based impact investment, with £80 million of investment into local development loans.

The loans support and help deliver three priorities for the region, including the regeneration and reuse of brownfield land, construction of new housing to diversify housing supply across the area and generation of new employment.

Loans made by SYPA, alongside other partners including the JESSICA Fund and Homes England have had success in achieving some of these aims, including the reuse of redundant buildings, which have delivered carbon savings.

By the end of 2022, the agreed loans will have:

• Developed 122 acres of brownfield land
• Constructed 149 private sector homes, including 52 “eco homes” on previously developed land
• Created 619,905sq ft of industrial floor space of which 38% reuses existing buildings
• Delivered 60,000sq ft of new office space that was pre-let to a FTSE 100 company, accommodating around 1,000 staff
• Potentially created 677 new jobs in the region

The latest investment to be signed off was a £34 million development loan for the Trammell Crow Company to deliver a grade A logistics scheme in Sheffield.

SYPA has a pipeline of more than £40 million of local investment loans for developments in Doncaster, Sheffield and Barnsley.

Councillor John Mounsey, the chair of the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, said: “It’s a pleasure to have invested our members’ capital in these local development schemes, providing quality jobs for our community, developments that are completed to high environmental standards, and providing new leases of life to unused or neglected spaces.

“It is rewarding to see the Pensions Authority use its power as an investor to help with a number of developments across South Yorkshire, boosting the region’s economy while making the returns we need to pay our members pensions.”