Insurer Legal & General has revealed that it is to speed up its house building programme via its construction arm following the Autumn Budget announcement by Philip Hammond.

Legal & General CEO Nigel Wilson says that the government’s plans to incentivise the construction of 300,000 new homes every year on average by the mid-2020s are the “first substantive supply-side policy for almost forty years since homes were sold during the 1980s”.

“Legal & General will therefore accelerate our roll-out of housing and associated infrastructure including on larger sites where we can create whole new communities”.

The company says it now plans to build 70,000 homes in the UK over the next five to ten years.

Its announcement coincided with news that it is to begin construction at a second huge site in Berkshire within what used to be an Army barracks near the village of Arborfield, near to Bracknell. Crest Nicholson is also building 2,000 homes within the site (pictured, left).

Legal & General has acquired 272 acres within the former barracks (pictured, below) where it plans to build 1,500 homes and the first residents are expected to move in within five years.

The development will offer homes from a range of different tenures and sectors of the housing market including traditional new homes but also build-to-rent rental properties as well as retirement homes, student accommodation and affordable housing.

Home sizes will range from one-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom detached family homes, but the site will also include a school, shops and space for businesses too.

The site is in addition to its first large-scale project, Buckler’s Park near Crowthorne, also in Berkshire, a 1000-home development within a 250-acre site already under way.

“We have a chronic housing shortage in the UK and speeding up the delivery of new supply is key to tackling this crisis,” says James Lidgate, CEO of Legal & General Homes.

“Adopting a multi-tenure approach means that we can create homes in a much shorter timescale as well as supporting people throughout their different life stages.”