Enabling work at the 57-acre Viking Way site will begin imminently, while construction of the homes is scheduled to start in September.

Castle Green Homes and Torus are aiming to hand over the first of the 396 homes at their Congleton scheme in spring 2025. It’s anticipated the overall development will be completed by the middle of 2028.

Castle Green secured unanimous consent for the scheme at the start of the year. Torus will deliver 238 of the homes after the housing provider and Castle Green struck a £150m affordable housing deal last year.

The remaining 160 homes will be sold privately.

Partnerships director for Castle Green Eoin O’Donnell, said: “We’re aiming to deliver homes to Torus at a record pace so they can place local families in well-designed, fuel-efficient homes as soon as possible.

“To do this we’ll have two phases of affordable homes being built simultaneously with between 100 and 200 people working on the site. Alongside this, we’ll have around 70 people building the private sale homes on the Woodland Manor phase of the development.”

Castle Green expects to hand over the first affordable homes to Torus by the middle of 2025. The homebuilder is targeting delivering 16 homes a month for the housing group, with the aim that all homes being built for Torus will be completed by December 2026.

Steve Alcock, director of development and technical at Torus Developments, said: “Partnerships like the one we have with Castle Green Homes allow us to build even more affordable homes in sought-after areas across the region.

“Congleton will see us deliver the largest number of affordable homes on a single site to date. There is real synergy between Torus and Castle Green to create a thriving new community together.”