The housing development arm of L&G bought the 272-acre site in Arborfield, Wokingham with pre-existing planning consent for the homes, a school, shops and employment generating uses.

It represents the second major site being brought forward by Legal & General Homes, having recently started work on Buckler’s Park, a 250 acre, 1000-home development in Crowthorne in Berkshire.

Construction for the first phase of new homes at Arborfield is due to start at the end of next year. The site is large enough to provide a full range of housing options, from one bed apartments to five bed detached family homes.

Over a third of the development will accommodate much-needed affordable housing, whilst over 44% of the total site will be dedicated to public open space.

Legal & General said its multi-tenure approach and use of modularised production would help to speed up housing delivery by over five years.

Its modular factory in Leeds was set up with the target of building more than 70,000 new homes over 10 years.

James Lidgate, CEO of Legal & General Homes, said:  “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.”