Industrial and logistics pipeline builds momentum for property group

Property group Harworth says despite continued economic uncertainty it remains on track to become a £1bn business in 2027, as it issues an update on its operational performance since the start of 2024.

The Rotherham-headquartered group says it completed, exchanged or is in heads of terms on 75% of budgeted sales for the current financial year.

And it has continued to build the scale of the pipeline, with 0.5m sq ft of strategic land acquisitions as part of site assembly.

Lynda Shillaw, chief executive, said: “Harworth has delivered strong strategic and operational momentum to date in 2024 despite a still somewhat uncertain economic backdrop.

“Strong demand remains for our serviced residential products which provide us with regular funding as we make excellent progress on our industrial & logistics pipeline in the remaining years of our current strategic planning period.

“This enables the delivery of over 3.3m sq ft and around £430m Gross Development Value (GDV) across our industrial & logistics sites by the end of 2027.

“We now have 23.6m sq ft and 12,290 residential plots that have planning consent, are in the planning system or have either allocation or draft allocation providing de-risked visibility on future projects.”

The group adds that it has planning applications for 10.1m sq ft of industrial & logistics space and 2,274 housing plots progressing through the planning system.

Also, enabling works are underway for 2.1m sq ft of further development on commercial sites.

Harworth notes it remains well capitalised with a conservative balance sheet and strong financial position.

As of 30 April 2024 net debt was £63.1m (31 December 2023: £36.4m), while the group had significant available liquidity of £171.1m (31 December 2023: £192.2m) and no refinancing requirements under core facilities until 2027.