Keepmoat poised to resume building new homes after lockdown

The Doncaster-based housebuilder said revenue increased by 8.8 per cent to £649.8m in the 12 months to October 31, 2019, while earnings before interest and taxes increased by a third (33.7 per cent) to £61.1m.

It sold 4,035 homes - 1.2 per cent more than the previous 12 months.

Chief executive Tim Beale (inset) said: “The last 12 months have been a transformational period for Keepmoat Homes.”

He added: “Keepmoat has been closely monitoring and responding to the Government’s latest guidance in our national response to the COVID-19 virus.

“As a responsible business, we have taken the decision to close all our sites and show homes. The health, safety and wellbeing of our customers, our people and our contractors is our top priority and we will continue to adhere to government advice.

“The group continued to trade well up until late March with high visitor levels and reservation rates and a strong order book for the delivery of high-quality affordable new homes for our customers and partners. Keepmoat is well positioned to recommence activities as soon as it is safe to get back to work at our developments.”

The average selling price of Keepmoat’s homes was £161,000 - up 7.3 per cent from £150,000 in the previous 12 months.

Mr Beale added: “As the UK’s leading partnership homebuilder, we continue to focus on delivering the affordable new homes the UK needs, with a focus on first time buyers in parts of the country where there is strong demand.

“We remain committed to a multi-tenure strategy with our partners, including Homes England, local authorities, registered providers and the private rented sector.

“We are also the UK’s leading brownfield builder with over 80 per cent of our current developments on brownfield land.

“We are pleased to see an increasingly sophisticated approach to brownfield development from the public sector, as we have seen with our brownfield delivery partnerships with local authorities in Leeds, Nottingham, Glasgow and Doncaster.”