Discover eases debt with site sales

The East Yorkshire firm is rebuilding after a restructuring last year which meant shutting 11 sites and hundreds of job cuts.

The firm, which now operates from five large sites, said it has sold five of seven surplus properties. The money is being used to repay a 5m non-performing loan to NatWest. Discover this week sold a site in Warrington to private buyers for 495,000, some 95,000 more than the site was worth in April.

It has also sold a site in Herne Bay, Kent, for 400,000. However, this compares to a 650,000 professional valuation in April.

It said boosting the value of the Kent site would have required "considerable time and expenses".

Discover said after these property sales the NatWest loan will be worth about 2.5m, with two sites left to be sold. The group has exchanged contracts on one of these, a site in Portsmouth worth 1.6m, in a deal subject to planning permission.

The other, a closed branch in Weston-super-Mare, is gaining interest.

"The net result of all of the recent property transactions and those anticipated is that the original loan of 5m with NatWest is expected to be cleared in full," it said.

Earlier this week Discover pointed to increasing signs of recovery in the caravan sector.