Property group poised to accelerate planning applications as conditions improve
Sheffield-headquartered property investor and developer, Henry Boot, says it has experienced an increase in demand in its key markets, as it releases a trading update for the year ended 31 December 2024.
The business adds that despite transactions of all kinds remaining slow to complete, it expects its profit before tax for the year ended 31 December 2024 to be in line with expectations of about £30.7m.
Tim Roberts, chief executive officer, said: “Throughout 2024, we saw a gradual improvement in market conditions which translated into a steady increase in demand across our key sectors.
“This, coupled with our focus on high quality land, prime property development and premium homes means we expect year end profits to be in line with market expectations.
“Looking forward, we have started 2025 with a bit more optimism, albeit while the reduction in interest rates provided a welcome boost to the economy, the trend downwards is now anticipated to be at a slightly slower pace than previously expected.
“The improvements to the planning system we have already seen under the new government also give us confidence, and we therefore intend to ramp up our planning applications, with a further 10,000 plots expected to be made in 2025.”
By completing sales of major strategic sites and development land, Henry Boot reduced its net debt throughout H2 2024 to around £63m as of 31 December 2024 (30 June 2024: £103.9m).
The group’s Hallam Land subsidiary completed 2,661 residential plot sales in 2024 (2023: 1,944 plots).
Although this was below the target of 3,000 plots for the year, Hallam still hit its full year financial target following a sale of employment land in Coventry.
During 2024 HBD, Henry Boot’s development arm, completed schemes with a total gross development value (GDV) of £331m, up from £126m last year, of which 72% have been pre-let or pre-sold. In the industrial and logistic sector HBD completed a total of 540,000 sq ft.
