St William Homes will create major residential and mixed-use schemes on surplus brownfield land held by National Grid.

The joint venture has funding of £700m and aims to commence development activity on its first site in 2016, with the first homes being delivered in 2017.

Rob Perrins, Managing Director of Berkeley, said: “This is good news for house-building.

“St William will take these redundant sites and turn them into new communities. I am delighted to be working with a partner like National Grid which shares our values and has such a strong pipeline of land and assets.”