Legal and General Affordable Homes has announced the details of its first four housing schemes.

They include 278 homes in Croydon, Cornwall, Dunstable and Shrivenham.

The first of these homes to be completed are in Leon House in Croydon and will be available this month, comprising 50 shared ownership apartments.

Legal and General has also secured a pipeline of over 40 sites across the UK, providing 1,500 affordable homes in the next 24 months.

It expects to deliver 3,000 affordable homes annually within the next four years.

Joint venture with Coastline

Legal & General’s second acquisition in Cornwall represents a joint venture with Coastline Housing Limited. With Legal & General’s financial backing, this will support Coastline in its ambition to double its affordable housing completions to 600 per year.

The partnership’s first scheme in Falmouth will comprise 44 affordable homes across two building phases, available from June 2019.

Legal & General Affordable Homes’ other two schemes in Dunstable and Shrivenham are being delivered under Section 106 agreements. Phoenix Park in Dunstable will be available to buyers from Q4 2019, comprising 23 shared ownership apartments.

Its scheme in Shrivenham has been acquired from Legal & General’s own house building arm, Legal & General Homes. This will deliver 109 homes at affordable rents and 52 shared ownership units. Homes will be available during the first half of 2020.

Delivery of affordable homes to be accelerated

Ben Denton, managing director of Legal & General Affordable Homes, said there was an urgent need to accelerate the delivery of new affordable homes.

He added: “We have made a great start in executing our development programme, alongside building our customer service platforms. Today marks the real start of our journey as we deliver our first affordable homes, working alongside high quality local providers to tackle the growing crisis.

“As demonstrated by the scope and range of our acquisitions today and the significant pipeline we have secured, we remain committed to offering a choice of tenures to our future residents; deploying institutional capital at scale and pioneering new partnership models, such as the one we have set up with Coastline.

“This range of routes to market will help us meet our ambition to become a leading affordable housing provider in the UK and delivering the volume of affordable homes which the country desperately needs.”

Nathan Mallows, director of finance of Coastline Housing, said: “This new joint venture partnership with Legal & General is the culmination of over a year of collaborative working; shaping an alliance that seeks to solve Cornwall’s housing need through long term, institutional investment, coupled with local knowledge and management expertise.

“Providing excellent customer service and increasing the provision of affordable housing is a mutual ambition.”