North East housebuilder Bellway has revealed it sold around 14% fewer homes last month, even as demand recovered from the depths of lockdown.
The Newcastle business said that reservations averaged 140 each week in July, down from 162 last year.
It is a normally quiet part of the year for Bellway, but is still 13.6% lower than a year ago.
In a trading update for the year ended July 31 2020 the firm said that the number of housing completions in the period fell significantly, reducing by 31% to 7,522 from 10,892), as a result of temporary groupwide site closures during the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Bellway, which is moving its headquarters from Seaton Burn to AirView Park close to Newcastle airport, said that has now reopened all its sales outlets, and apart from those who are self-isolating, all staff are back to work and construction has restarted.
Its staff were furloughed on full pay while they were unable to be on site, and Bellway covered this out of its own cash, rather than turning to the Government for support.
Bellway said its order book was strong, at 6,588 homes, up from 4,878 a year earlier at a value of £1.76bn, and that the board is keen to resume dividend payments as soon as there is more certainty for the economic outlook.
Chief executive Jason Honeyman said: “Our priority throughout this crisis has been the health, safety and wellbeing of our colleagues, customers and subcontract workers.
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“The collective response from those who work for and with Bellway, both on and off-site, has been tremendous and this has enabled us to respond positively and responsibly during these challenging times.
“Our attention now turns to the trading year ahead. Whilst the economic outlook is uncertain, sales demand is encouraging, and the Group has built a strong forward sales position.
“With our resilient balance sheet, we will proceed cautiously along the road to recovery, determined to return the Group to its strategy of delivering long-term and sustainable growth.”
CMC Markets chief market analyst Michael Hewson said: “Bellway Homes also issued a trading update which showed the house builder completed fewer properties in 2020, due to the shutdowns that we saw in April.
“While completions fell to 7,522 from 10,892 the previous year, the company’s order book rose by over £500 million to £1.76 billion.
“The company didn’t provide any revenue or profit guidance, due to the ongoing uncertainties around the economic outlook and also declined to say when it would resume the dividend.”
The trading update comes two weeks after Bellway, which employs around 3,100 people across the 海角视频, announced a restructure which will result in the loss of 6% of its workforce. The roles at risk are across 20 of its divisions and will result in around 175 job losses.