Despite the continuing demand for more good-quality, affordable properties throughout the UK, house building companies are still struggling due to the economic climate. Landlords are therefore finding it hard to provide suitable accommodation for all their tenants, meaning that many are choosing to refurbish their properties and claim on their landlord insurance. However, the housing, regeneration and construction specialist Lovell, based in Mold, have recently announced that they have achieved a £47 million profit for their parent company the Morgan Sindall Group.
Even though Lovell has achieved such a great success, the parent company has still announced that they have seen a nine per cent decline in its order book, down to £3.1 billion. Furthermore, the dividend for the year was 27p a share, down from 42p the previous year. Even though the company’s profits have fallen this year, Lovell’s work with housing associations has greatly helped the company, with managing director Stewart Davenport saying: “We experienced difficult trading conditions across all of the markets in 2012.”
“Despite this, our open market completions were 15% up on 2011 and we maintained a healthy order book of £1.3 billion securing key projects throughout the year. The third quarter of 2012 saw a restructure of the business in order to remain competitive and deploy best practice and resources as efficiently as possible. Our strategy remains focussed on delivering affordable new homes for our RSL clients and open market customers as well as offering a national planned and responsive maintenance service.”
Lovell have had numerous projects with housing associations in the past year, such as the thirty five million pound housing refurbishment for Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd (CCG) where they refurbished 1,100 homes both internally and externally. Furthermore, CCG is also paying Lovell six million pounds in order to completely remodel and refurbish seventy-three properties of non-traditional construction. Other housing associations that Lovell has worked with include the Rhyl for Pennaf Housing Association, whom last July paid the company £1.2 million to refurbish their listed buildings.
Lovell is also working with Deeside College as part of their Pathways to Apprenticeships scheme, where Chris Humphreys and Paul Woby from the company held mock interviews with the students. Deeside College’s head of construction, Dave Roberts said: “In the current economic climate it is vital that we are providing our students with the opportunity to develop skills that are going to give them a head start when applying for first time jobs. Regardless of their technical abilities, not performing well at an interview could cost these youngsters their first break, which they will need to get onto the career ladder.”