Builder Barratt reduced workforce by hundreds after Liz Truss’s premiership, company reveals

As a result the headcount of the business, which employs more than 6,000 people, fell by 6 per cent between September last year and June, it said.

Barratt Developments Yorkshire, which includes the Barratt Homes and David Wilson Homes brands, built 1,369 new homes across the region last year – supporting more than 3,000 jobs in the process.

It comes as Barratt warned it is facing a difficult market due to rising interest rates and the cost of living, which are making it more difficult for people to afford its homes.

The business also said that the price of building a house had been increasing more rapidly than the price for which a house can be sold.

The housebuilder said that it reduced the number of constructions it completed in the six months to the end of June. It finished 17,206 homes during that period, 700 fewer than the year before.

“We have delivered a strong operational performance in a challenging operating environment,” said chief executive David Thomas.

“Customers continue to face cost-of-living and mortgage affordability challenges, and new developments are increasingly constrained by an ineffective planning system.

“Today’s results reflect the hard work and dedication of our teams and the decisive actions we have taken as a business to respond to market conditions.”

Pre-tax profit rose 9.8 per cent to £705.1 million while revenue was up 1 per cent to £5.3 billion, Barratt told shareholders on Wednesday.

Mr Thomas said the company expects “that the backdrop will continue to be difficult over the coming months”.

The company said that the proportion of its homes that had been sold in advance had fallen from 62 per cent in August last year to 49 per cent in the same month this year.

Meanwhile, the reservation rate per active outlet per week – a key measure for the construction industry which tracks how many homes are sold at each building site – was 0.42 in July and August, down from 0.6 per cent in the last financial year.

Chair Caroline Silver said: “Looking ahead, we recognise that there are significant macro-economic headwinds, most notably the continuing inflationary pressures and the resulting interest rate environment which is impacting mortgage affordability and availability in the UK, as well as economic growth, employment and consumer confidence and spending.”

Earlier this year, Ian Ruthven, Managing Director at Barratt Developments Yorkshire West and Daniel Smith, Managing Director at Barratt Developments Yorkshire East, told The Yorkshire Post building work is being held up by frequent delays in councils determining planning applications – with some decisions that should take 13 weeks actually not being determined for over 18 months.