Up to 1,500 new homes are to be built in Wokingham, Berkshire.

Legal & General (L&G) has acquired a 272-acre site in Arborfield for the scheme and the first phase of construction is scheduled to start at the end of 2018.

The project, which has outline planning consent for new homes, a school, shops and employment generating uses, represents the second site bought forward by Legal & General Homes, the Group's housebuilding arm. Up to 1,000 homes are also being built across the 250-acre Buckler's Park site in Crowthorne.

In addition, the developer will apply its multi-tenure approach to reduce housing delivery times by more than five years.

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Nigel Wilson, Chief Executive Officer of Legal & General, said: "The Budget creates the right backdrop for a real boost to one of the key areas of infrastructure – housing supply. This is the first substantive supply side policy for almost forty years, since council houses were sold in the 1980's. 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."

James Lidgate, CEO of Legal & General Homes, added: "We have a chronic housing shortage in the UK and speeding up the delivery of new supply is key to tackling this 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 1500 new homes, we believe that we could achieve a 50% improvement in delivery."

(LM/MH)