A BILLION-pound fund to help boost house building across England - and give smaller builders more access to finance - has been announced.
Barclays is providing £875 million and Homes England, the Government's housing agency, will give £125 million.
The money will be used to help build thousands of new homes in England, to increase the pace and number of dwellings being built, Barclays said.
Loans ranging from £5 million to £100 million are being made available for developers and house builders, to get new schemes off the ground.
Barclays said funding is open to new and existing clients and will help diversify the housing market as, at present, nearly two-thirds of homes are built by just 10 companies.
The agreement with Barclays forms part of the Government's aim to achieve 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s.
Some 217,000 new homes were built last year.
Read more HERE