Demand boosts workload at housebuilder Countryside

A full-year trading update from Countryside, which specialises in urban regeneration work, announced it had completed 3,389 homes, up 28% on last year.

The average private selling price of its homes fell by to £430,000 in line with expectations, with underlying sales price growth of 5%.

Many of its projects are in London and the South East, but it also has sites in Merseyside, Manchester and in the West Midlands, including Galton Lock in Smethwick, Regis Park in Cradley Heath and Silkin Green in Telford.

The housebuilder's private forward order book was up 8% at £242.4 million.

Countryside also added more than 7,000 new housing plots to its land bank through its Partnerships division, which now has almost 19,000 plots under its control – around nine years' worth of future work.

Looking ahead it said customer demand had remained strong across all markets.

"Low interest rates and increased demand from first time buyers, supported by Help to Buy, continue to underpin private for sale homes, while strong demand for affordable and PRS further support our continued growth.

"We are encouraged by the continued political support for all tenures of housing with the recently increased commitments to both Help to Buy and affordable housing and we feel we are ideally placed to benefit from these policies."

Chief executive Ian Sutcliffe added: “We continue to see industry leading growth from our mixed tenure delivery and excellent returns from our innovative Partnerships business model.

"We have successfully positioned our business to meet the strongest areas of customer demand and are greatly encouraged by the continued and increased political support for mixed tenure housing. We see further opportunities for both our Partnerships and Housebuilding divisions and remain entirely confident in delivering our medium-term growth plans.”