Larkfleet Group, trading as Larkfleet Homes and Allison Homes, has seen a strong trading performance for the year to the end of June 2021.
A statement from John Anderson, Group CEO of Larkfleet Group:
“All parts of the business performed well over the year delivering a strong trading performance for the year ending June 2021. There’s been robust demand for our homes across all operating regions and our continued focus on cost control and controlling work in progress, aligned to strategic investment, has resulted in cash reserves and the balance sheet improving significantly.
Larkfleet strong trading performance: We continue to strengthen the team and improve our operational efficiency resulting in , better quality control and safety with a corresponding improvement in the standard of service we provide to our customers.
Counterbalancing this strong consumer demand, material and labour supply shortages, common across many UK sectors, has acted as a drag on performance and resulted in significant cost inflation and build delays.
However, sales and completions exceeded expectation with 484 new homes being handed to new homeowners in the period, representing a 48% uplift on the previous year (398 private homes sales 2020 – 2021 vs 267 in 2019 – 2020).
Year on year the gross profit margin for the business increased by 5.4 percentage points, benefitting from the completion of older, lower margin sites, replaced with newer higher margin sites. There was also a great improvement in operating margin to 11.6%. As a result of higher sales volumes and the fact in the year to 30 June 2020 sales volumes were severely impacted by the first national Covid 19 lockdown through April, May and June.
Order Book
As of 2nd August the house building order book for the 2021/22 financial year stood at 295 units representing a forward sold position in excess of 50% of this years’ private sale forecast.
In addition to this we are also carrying 164 contracted affordable units into future financial years beyond June 2022.
Future Prospects
The Group has also made significant advances in bringing forward option sites through the planning process and in acquiring new sites and agreeing new land options for the future.
Over the past year the Company’s planning successes have included:
- Broadland Fields, Broadland Gate, Norwich – hybrid planning permission for up to 520 new homes including a site for a new primary school.
- Morton, South Kesteven – FULL planning permission for 22 affordable homes for young people and families.
- Fernwood, Newark – Reserved Matters approval for 350 homes
- Glatton Road, Sawtry, Huntingdonshire – outline planning permission for 340 new homes including a site for a new primary school.
- Nettleham, West Lindsey – Permission for seven units approved as part of Entry Level Exception site application.
- Corby Glen, South Kesteven – Detailed consent for 66 new homes.
- Manthorpe, Grantham, South Kesteven – Reserved matters approval for 480 new homes
- Manning road, Bourne, South Kesteven – Full detailed consent for 121 new homes.
The group handed over 86 Affordable Homes to local residents and helped 161 people to move with the popular, government backed, Help to Buy scheme, enabling first time buyers to buy their first home. Other initiatives included a part-exchange and various Assisted Move schemes that have helped many people to move to a newly built home.
We are also extremely proud of our record in helping local communities enjoy the often-ignored economic benefit that new home building provides. Over the course of the financial year (based on Knight Frank Estate Agents analysis), achieving our forecast completions we will provide over £84m of economic benefit to the community which includes almost £25m spent on suppliers, supporting over 1,500 local jobs.
In addition, the new homes bonus will provide Local Authorities with an additional £1.7m and an annual council tax income of almost £670k annually.
Along with Karl Hick, Helen Hick, and the board of Larkfleet Group, I would like to thank all staff, sub-contractors, suppliers, local authorities, housing associations and funders for their continued support.”
