The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government has set out plans to create a new base in Wolverhampton that will serve as a “dual HQ” with its existing London headquarters.

Housing secretary Robert Jenrick said the move was “historic” and would see the MHCLG group’s West Midlands headcount rise from the current 300 to 500 by 2025. Homes England now has its national headquarters in Coventry.

He said the Wolverhampton HQ would have a “regular ministerial presence”, in a first for a departmental centre outside of the capital, and that senior civil servants would also be based in the building. The move comes against the backdrop of wider government plans to move 22,000 civil service jobs out of London by the end of this decade.

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