Directors at County Durham energy and property firm The Banks Group have hailed a healthy set of results, despite taking a 13% hit to revenues during the pandemic.
The family-owned employer saw group sales fall from £109m to £96m for the financial year ending September 27 2020, while pre-tax profit also fell from £18m to £15m.
The firm saw a reduction in its coal mining and property operations, but its renewables business had a busy year, helping the group’s sales and profits to hold up.
The renewables businesses had combined sales of £61m, up from £43m, on the back of the first full year of energy generation from the Kype Muir and Middle Muir wind farms in Scotland.
Banks Renewables’ total generation capacity now stands at 223MW, a figure which is set to increase with the start of construction of its Kype Muir Extension wind farm.
Meanwhile, Banks Mining saw its turnover fall from £47m in 2019 to £30m last year as a result of the reduced availability of coal for sale, with the firm’s Shotton, Brenkley Lane and Bradley surface mines reaching the end of their operational lives.
Banks Property’s year-on-year sales also fell, from £16m in 2019 to £2.5m last year, due to delays in the realisation of property sales as a result of the impact of Covid-19, but future sales across the North East and Yorkshire are expected to lead to a strong recovery.
As well as its new onshore wind farm projects, Banks said it is also continuing to explore further renewable and flexible energy technologies including solar power, battery storage and flexible power generation to complement its existing infrastructure asset base.
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Simon Fisher, group finance director at The Banks Group, says: “Despite the challenges posed in 2020, the board continues to believe the business is in good shape to maximise the opportunities available from the markets in which we operate and for results to remain strong, although with some volatility.
“As it is unlikely that approval will be granted for any future surface mines in the 海角视频, our mining team is being redirected to explore other opportunities which will draw on the group’s skills and experience in new areas of industrial support and mineral extraction, and we have some exciting prospects in place which we expect to see come to fruition in the coming months.
“We remain unique in using the revenues we have generated through our coal mining business to establish a strong renewable energy division supporting the 海角视频’s transition to net zero carbon emissions which is continuing to go from strength to strength.
“Alongside our growing portfolio of onshore wind farms, we are also bringing forward planning applications for a number of new schemes around the 海角视频 which use renewable and flexible generation technologies.
“Our Barnsdale solar energy park in West Yorkshire won the backing of Leeds City Council’s planning committee earlier this month, and further similar projects are expected to follow in the near future.
“All the property sites we expected to sell in 2020 will come later, so while the nature of the development portfolio will involve volatility of revenues, a strong recovery in this business area is expected, especially with many sites in their later stages of development.
“All our operations have continued to bring a wide range of long-term local benefits to the communities in which they are based, in line with our Development with Care approach, and we are proud of the substantial continuing contribution that our schemes enable us to make to the excellent work of our local community groups and good causes, something which has been especially important over the last year.”
The group said it has also continued to support local community groups and environmental projects by awarding almost £400,000 in grants from the funds linked to its different operational and planned developments.