Southern Housing Group built nearly two-thirds of its targeted homes in 2022/23 as it battled increased costs and contractor insolvencies, it has said.

The association, which completed a merger with Optivo in December, completed 1,089 homes in the financial year against its original target of 1,704.

The 78,000-home association, in its annual financial statement, said: “The difficult economic operating environment has created a number of issues for us in delivering our programme – we are managing cost increases and the impact of a number of contractors having gone into administration in 2022/23.