BASINGSTOKE-based housing association Sentinel has secured millions of pounds worth of new funding from private investors.

The Houndmills-based landlord secured a £75million bond in the capital markets to provide further funding for new affordable housing.

The money was raised through a Private Placement Bond, which attracts investors such as pension funds and insurance providers, to invest in the organisation.

The funding is a mixture of 20 and 32-year funding at a fixed interest rate. Sentinel said that £15m of funding has come from capital markets in the USA.

Sentinel’s outgoing chief executive Martin Nurse said the money helps to replace the organisation’s traditional sources of funding which have plummeted since the banking crisis.

He added: “Grant funding from Government for affordable housing has been cut by 65 per cent and the banking sector is no longer open for long-term borrowing.

“We have, therefore, had to think of innovative ways to raise funding to continue Sentinel’s work to provide high-quality, affordable homes in Basingstoke and across north Hampshire.

“It means that the proposals we have for affordable housing at Merton Rise in Basingstoke and the former Eli Lilly site are fully funded.”