Development under pressure: the case for joined-up project management
Housing providers are being asked to deliver more homes faster and under tighter scrutiny than ever. The Government has made housing supply a national priority, yet development teams are navigating financial constraints, volatile build costs, complex funding and tight regulations. Here, Sundeep Heer, M3’ s Head of Implementation and Consultancy, explores why something has to give, and why it’ s often the ability to see the programme clearly.
The numbers show the scale of the task. Homes England’ s latest figures recorded just over 33,000 affordable housing starts in 2025 / 26, a 12 % rise on the previous year, alongside 32,000 completions, representing 80 % of all homes delivered through its programmes.* Delivery is genuinely accelerating, but growth brings its own strain: more schemes, more milestones, more moving parts to track across the appraisal, funding, construction and handover phases.
Regulation isn’ t standing still either. In January, the Building Safety Regulator formally left the Health and Safety Executive to become a standalone body sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government- a step towards the single construction regulator recommended by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. For development teams, that means new competence requirements, tighter Gateway processes and another layer of information to hold alongside the financial and contractual detail of every scheme.
The problem isn’ t a lack of data
Having worked with housing providers throughout my career, I’ ve seen how much sits behind a single development programme: appraisals, planning milestones, grant funding, build costs, cashflow, procurement, board reporting … the list goes on. The information exists. The trouble is that it lives in too many places. It is held in spreadsheets, legacy systems and individual project files, making it difficult to know which figure is current, what an adjustment really changes, or what to report to the board with confidence. A six-month delay doesn’ t stay contained, it ripples into cashflow, grant conditions, borrowing and viability across the whole programme. Disconnected information means a disconnected response.
What connected information looks like in practice
Abri felt this acutely. Following consolidation, teams were working across different systems
Source: * Housing Statistics June 2026- GOV. UK
18 Issue 28 using manual Excel processes and reporting grew harder as their development programme grew. Moving to M3Pamwin Plus gave Abri a single source of development information. The team noted that requests that once took weeks to answer could now be turned around in hours, because the data lived in one place rather than needing to be chased and reconciled. That wasn’ t just a time saving, it also freed up teams to focus on what the numbers actually meant, rather than where to find them.
West Kent Housing Association reached a similar point as its development programme expanded and information was spread across multiple spreadsheets and systems. Since implementing M3Pamwin Plus, it has brought development and financial data together, sharpening visibility and forecasting. As a result, the cashflow function lets project managers forecast spend and manage budget by work area, splitting complex appraisals into finer detail, with accurate numbers available in real-time. The result is a clearer view of project performance and future spend, and more confidence in every decision built on it.
Visible data for clearer decision making
With tighter funding constraints and shifting planning requirements, the case for connecting programmes, financial data and project information keeps getting stronger. Done well, it doesn’ t just make reporting easier, it gives teams a clear line of sight across the whole programme, so they can see what’ s changed and where to intervene, before a small issue escalates into a major problem.
Sundeep Heer | Head of Implementation & Consultancy, M3
Sundeep joined M3 in 2016. Her role
Sundeep Heer involves carrying out implementation of M3Pamwin Plus for
clients, as well as providing consultancy services and ongoing training for all clients.
Sundeep brings over 10 years’ experience of social housing. She has an in depth understanding of social housing from appraising and programme managing large, complex developments and disposals, sales experience of a variety of subsidised housing products to letting, customer service and managing existing stock.
Sundeep holds a BA( Hons) in Accounting & Finance from Leeds Beckett University.
Technology alone won’ t solve the pressures facing housing providers, and neither will another spreadsheet. What will help is bringing people, process and information together- from appraisal through approval and funding, to delivery and completion. Because the value of better information isn’ t in having it. It’ s in what teams do with it: the difference between monitoring a programme and actively steering it.
M3 Housing provides software, consultancy and training to help social landlords efficiently manage housing maintenance and development process, with flexible solutions covering the full project lifecycle— from appraisal and development to ongoing asset management. Visit us at www. m3h. co. uk to learn more.