Hundreds of people are living in a brand-new affordable home after we exceeded our annual housing building target.

By the close of play on Thursday we were able to announce we had completed construction of 1,224 during the 21-22 financial year. New homes have been built right across the area we operate in, including homes in the Cotswolds, Lichfield, Cradley Heath and the Forest of Dean, as we exceeded our target of 1,200 affordable homes for the year.

It’s a 35% increase on the number of homes we built in the previous year, which had been affected by sites being closed during the pandemic. As part of increasing the total number of homes built, we have also increased the number of social rent homes we built, up from our industry-leading 377 to 444.

Chief investment officer Martyn Blackman said: “With house prices growing at their fastest rate for more than a decade* and the cost of living continuing to rise, the need for affordable homes has never been greater. So we’re delighted to have exceeded our target for the number of homes we were aiming to build during the year, despite having to contend with the ongoing effects of Covid and difficulties with the supply of labour and materials. It’s been a brilliant effort from everyone in the team.

“Our in-house construction team have built more than 250 of these homes, the largest amount we have ever delivered. And we’ve increased the number of social rent homes we’ve delivered to 444. Ultimately this means that hundreds of people now have a warm, safe, affordable place they can call home, which is what we are here to provide."

In the past month we have also formally signed its new £240m strategic partnership with Homes England for the next five years. We were one of 31 partners announced by the government agency in the autumn to increase the number of affordable homes being built in the country. The latest tranche of funding will allow us to build 4,000 affordable homes across a range of tenures right across the Midlands and West of England between now and 2029.

We were originally selected as an original Homes England strategic partner in January 2019, which has allowed us to secure opportunities to deliver in excess of 1,500 homes from an allocation of £74.3m, which was increased following the initial announcement. Nearly 400 of these have been built so far, including homes in Oldbury, Pershore and Ombersley, with further completions continuing up to 2025.

Martyn added: “Securing the Homes England partnership for a further five years allows us to look ahead with confidence that we’ll be able to deliver our future house building aspirations. Over the past year, we have secured two of our biggest ever land deals and will be continuing to seek opportunities to buy and develop our own sites as well as exploring opportunities to work in partnership with other developers. This will allow us to build even more and provide homes to even more people to enable them to thrive.”

*House prices see record cash rise, says Nationwide - BBC News, 2 March 2022