We've completed the purchase of land in a Worcestershire village which will provide much-needed affordable homes for more than 30 families.

We've finalised a deal to secure a four acre site in Offenham, which already has planning permission for 34 homes. Now we're making preparations to start work on the site, which is off Three Cocks Lane, and are aiming to have completed the new homes by early 2026.

The site was granted planning permission in February with 40% of the homes designated as affordable, but we will make it a 100% affordable site with homes either available for rent or to part-rent part-buy through its shared ownership scheme. Twenty-four homes will be rented through the local authority’s choice-based lettings scheme, while the shared ownership homes will be sold through us via our sales site. A mix of two-, three- and four-bedroom homes will be built on the site.

Head of Land, Lyndon Parkes, said: “We want to maintain our position as one of the country’s leading developers of affordable housing and have ambitions to build an additional 11,000 homes by 2032. We want to have greater control over our ability to do this by building more homes ourselves, so it’s vital that we acquire good quality land so we can achieve our aspirations and continue to provide homes in the communities we work in across the West Midlands and West of England.

“We’re delighted to have secured this land, which will provide modern, energy efficient homes for dozens of local families. This is a really attractive site, which includes plenty of green space for residents to enjoy, and we’re looking forward to seeing construction get underway later this year.”

Our in-house construction team will be starting work on site this autumn. The team completed around 150 of the 1,151 homes we built last year and this figure is set to rise in the coming year. We built 551 social rent homes, making us the biggest builder of this tenure in the country according to housing sector magazine Inside Housing.