The firm, which turned over around £30m at peak construction, now employs 250 staff and is gearing up to expand this side of the business as housing demand takes off.

Managing director Kevin Rouse said: “We set up a small house building business last year and this is a natural extension to use our expertise to broaden our services.

“We are first and foremost a civil engineering contractor, but we have seen the opportunity to meet growing housing demand in the region.”

“The civils arm is a major benefit to Rouse Homes as we can de-risk sites and we have the benefit of our large internal plant fleet where we operate 1200 items of plant from small tools through to heavy line plant and site accommodation.

The majority of house builders will package trades up where Rouse Homes is delivering its own groundworks, brickwork and joinery, which eliminates a lot of interface on sites.

He said that Rouse would be offering a full turnkey service from groundworks to the carpeted finish.

Through its housing arm, Rouse Homes, the civil engineering firm has built 13 homes last year and expects to complete 19 this year with more sites planned to open in 2014.

Rouse said: “Many small to medium-sized developers disappeared from the industry during the recession leaving a gap for these size of projects to be developed.

“We are in talks with several main contractors and developers about our new service, which will see Rouse take responsibility for the delivery of housing plans.”

Meanwhile, K Rouse civil engineers was recently awarded a £10m civils contract on the M1/M62 as part of the managed motorway schemes.