JV North will be building nearly 3,000 homes in Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Preston over the next four years.

The group of ten landlords received a grant of £87.3m from the HCA’s Shared Ownership Affordable Homes Programme to add to its own investment of £248.2m of their own funds taking the overall total to £335.5m.

JV North’s current construction framework runs until this summer with new names due to be announced shortly.

JV North Chairman, Nigel Wilson, who is also Chief Executive at Wythenshawe Community Housing Group said: “The overall investment is more than a third of a billion pounds.

“We acknowledged a number of years ago that there was a looming housing problem in the areas we operate.

“Working as a consortium we have sought to do all we can to address this and the level of support from the HCA is very welcome, so too is the timing of this announcement as we renew our consultants and contractors framework later this month.

“The successful bid presents challenges and opportunities to our members as the majority of our homes have historically been built for social and affordable rent.

“We now need to ensure we have the right tools and resources to help sell the properties once built while at the same time pressing ahead with our 2015/18 Affordable Homes Programme that will see us build 2,172 homes by the end of March next year.”