The company – which has around 70,000 customers – has plans to build at least 1,200 new homes a year, including a mix of social and affordable rent, shared ownership and private sale.

VIVID has around 30,000 homes, mostly in Hampshire, as well as a repairs team, its own construction arm called VIVID Build and offices in Portsmouth, Basingstoke, Aldershot and Eastleigh.

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Peter Walters, chief executive at VIVID, said: “We’re very excited by the positive impact that VIVID will make on our ability to build more homes for local people, while continuing to deliver great services to customers.”

Peter – a former chief executive of First Wessex – will step down from his role at VIVID in six months and be replaced by Mark Perry, a former chief executive at Sentinel.

Mark said: “VIVID brings together the expertise, financial strength and housebuilding potential of two well established, innovative and successful organisations.

“And we’ve created a high-performing and influential business, better placed to respond to the ever-changing environment in which we work for the benefit of current and future customers.”