Legal & General (L&G) Retirement Institutional had announced plans to invest more than £2bn of pension money into affordable housing over the next five years.

The plans will see more than 10,000 new homes created nationwide and aims to work towards ‘levelling up’ the UK through L&G’s purpose of inclusive capitalism.

The investment will be made through L&G’s wholly owned subsidiary, L&G Affordable Homes, and aims to help tackle the shortage of affordable housing in the UK.

L&G stated that there were currently 1.2 million households currently waiting on social housing waiting lists in England.

The National Housing Federation and charity Crisis have estimated that 145,000 new affordable homes need to be built every year to meet demand, with around 45,000 delivered in 2020/21.

“The UK has a huge shortage of affordable homes,” commented L&G Retirement Institutional chief executive officer, Andrew Kail.

“Today’s announcement demonstrates how L&G Retirement Institutional, by putting inclusive capitalism at the centre of its investment focus, will help to address some of this problem.

“L&G is committed to building a better society for all by investing in useful and sustainable assets that will benefit both today’s society and future generations, whilst investing hard earned pension savings and securing the pensions of thousands of scheme members.”

The investment follows previous funding commitments to affordable homes by L&G Retirement Institutional, including £100m in 2020 and a further £270m in 2021.

L&G Affordable Homes chief executive, Ben Denton, added: “This is a great example of how L&G is making a significant difference to people’s lives and their communities by building new affordable homes and providing housing for those most in need.

“We are also working to maximise the number of low carbon homes we build, and we have committed that all new affordable homes we develop will be net-zero carbon by 2030.

“There is still a massive need to deliver more affordable housing to help the 1.2 million households on the social housing register.”

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