Henry Boot defies ‘construction slowdown’ talk

HENRY BOOT said its construction division has made a “strong start” to the year despite recent Government figures which suggest the sector is contracting.

Construction output in March fell by 3.6% month-on-month, according to ONS data, however, Henry Boot said its construction business continues to undertake projects across a wide range of sectors including industrial, residential housing, custodial, health, commercial, education, leisure, renewable energy and civil engineering.

“We have made a strong start to the year and expect to achieve targeted activity in 2016 and are already building the 2017 order book. Encouragingly, and contrary to certain press comment regarding parts of the UK construction market, we are seeing improvements in both construction activity and the size of opportunities coming to the market. As a consequence, we anticipate a small improvement in pricing levels associated with the growing workload in all our operating sectors,” it said in a trading update this morning.

Henry Boot also said its other divisions, land development, property investment are all trading well but it warned it may see some transactional uncertainty around the EU referendum.

“We do not anticipate this will last for long or have a detrimental effect on the year as a whole, and therefore we remain confident that trading will meet the board’s expectations for the full year,” the company added.

Henry Boot’s development at the former Terry’s chocolate factory in York opened for apartment sales in April.

It said it has reservations on more 40 luxury apartments at sales values above those originally envisaged.

“The first sales completions are expected in the second half of 2016 and current demand indicates that we should see further sales throughout this year and 2017,” the company said.

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