Legal & General (L&G) has attained a 272-acre site in Wokingham, Berkshire, which has outline planning consent for 1,500 new homes
The site – located in Arborfield – also has outline planning consent for a school, shops and employment-generating uses.
It is the second major site brought forward by L&G’s housebuilding arm Legal & General Homes after it recently began work on a 1,000-home development in Crowthorne, Berkshire.
The Arborfield site is located in a prime residential area in Berkshire within 15 minutes of the newly regenerated Bracknell town centre.
Construction for the first phase of new homes is due to begin at the end of next year, with the site comprising of homes ranging from one-bed apartments to five-bed detached family homes.
Over a third of the development will accommodate affordable housing, while over 44% of the total site will be dedicated to public open space.
Nigel Wilson, CEO of Legal & General, said the Budget created the right backdrop for a real boost to housing supply.
“This is the first substantive supply-side policy for almost 40 years, since council houses were sold in 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 like Crowthorne and Arborfield.
“We welcome the chancellor’s stamp duty reform, which helps to address intergenerational unfairness, and would like to see this for young and old alike, enabling all age groups to access homes that best suit their needs.”
L&G is hoping to build more than 70,000 new homes over the next five to 10 years and James Lidgate, CEO of Legal & General Homes, felt the UK had a lingering housing shortage and that speeding up delivery was key to solving that crisis.
“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.
“Rather than taking 15 years to build 1,500 new homes, we believe that we could achieve a 50% improvement in delivery.”
