A variety of house builders, contractors and development consortia have been appointed to the Homes and Communities Agency's (HCA) new Delivery Partner Panel, it was announced today.

Aimed at streamlining development on publicly-owned land, the panel is divided into three clusters, northern, central and southern, to provide full national coverage.

In addition to working on the HCA's own projects, panel members will be made available to Local Authorities, Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and other public agencies to deliver new homes through programmes such as Local Authority New Build and Public Land Initiative.

Eamonn Boylan, Director of New Ventures and Partnerships at the HCA, said: "We hope that this panel will help speed up the procurement process for public sector agencies by providing access to a pre-qualified list of organisations that can assist with all stages of the development process.

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From finance and funding of development, design and construction to sales and marketing, the panel can now be used to procure both physical development works and related services in the early stages of a development project."

To procure through the panel, public agencies will be required to sign up to a letter of agreement with the HCA and set up a separate framework contract between themselves and panel members. The panel is operational with immediate effect until 3 January 2013.

Mr Boylan added: "This panel supports our aim of encouraging new entrants into the housing market.

"Several construction firms have been successful, many bringing with them experience of the planning system and of partnerships with the public sector through Building Schools for the Future and the health sector's LIFT programme, for example. House builders and mixed-use developers also competed intensely to join the panel, recognising the opportunity to widen their business in a difficult market by working on a more contractual basis for public land owners in future."

(CD/BMcC)