Kier is set to start a unique £1 billion housing delivery scheme that will help the public sector build 10,000 new homes across the UK.

The New Communities Partnership will provide local authorities and housing associations with an innovative delivery model for building new homes on their own land, giving them the option to choose between sale and/or rental developments, and offers significant scope for affordable development.

It will also provide public sector clients with potential scope to derive a revenue income from their land, whilst developing in a socially responsible way that will offer local apprenticeships, wider employment and sustainable, economic benefits for communities.

The collective expertise of the partners spans the lifecycle of home building, offering an end-to-end development solution that includes procurement, funding, site assembly, construction, sales, management and maintenance, tailored to be as comprehensive or as focussed as each public sector client needs.

With traditional developments only having delivered an average of 11% of affordable housing over the past 3 years , the partnership will provide a differentiated model that will increase significantly the amount of affordable homes built, with scope for up to 50% of each site to offer affordable development opportunities.

Haydn Mursell, chief executive of Kier, said: “We believe this Partnership creates an excellent and capital efficient opportunity for the private and public sectors to work together to help address the UK’s housing shortage.

“Kier Living’s contribution to the Partnership will be its extensive experience of building and maintaining private and mixed-tenure residential developments across the country.

“We believe that the private sector has a significant role to play if we are to meet the government’s house building targets.”