Continuing strong customer demand

Barratt Developments PLC (the ‘Group’) is holding its Annual General Meeting (‘AGM’) as a closed meeting at 12:00pm today. This trading update is for the period from 1 July to 11 October 2020 (the ‘period’). All comparatives are to the prior year equivalent period (‘2020’) unless otherwise stated. Barratt Developments PLC’s year end is 30 June 2021.

David Thomas, Chief Executive commented:

“Health and safety remains our number one priority and we remain focused on keeping our people safe while we rebuild completion volumes, bring further operational improvements to our business, and deliver on our commitment to build the highest quality homes across the country.

There is continuing strong customer demand for our homes and we have a healthy forward order book. As we look ahead, whilst significant economic and political uncertainties persist, we believe our disciplined approach and strong balance sheet provide us with the resilience and flexibility to react positively to future challenges.”

Trading update

We are seeing continuing strong customer demand for our high quality new homes across the country. Our sales rate in the period was 0.87¹ net private reservations per active outlet per average week, up 20.8% on last year (2020: 0.72).

We operated from an average of 340 (2020: 374) active outlets (including 8 JVs (2020: 8)) reflecting the delay to site commencements created by the impact of the lockdown period on our operations. In line with our expectations, we have launched 33 (2020: 26) new developments (including JVs), helping underpin the expected recovery of our completion volumes.

In the period we delivered 4,032 (2020: 3,252) home completions (including JVs), up 24.0% on last year. Total forward sales (including JVs) as at 11 October 2020 were 15,135 homes (13 October 2019: 12,963 homes) at a value of £3,647.6m (13 October 2019: £3,070.2m).

Our sites continue to operate safely and successfully across the country, including areas of local lockdown, enabled by our extensive COVID-19 working practices and protocols. Construction activity remains in line with FY21 planned output, with an average of 294 equivalent homes constructed per week in the period.