Hill edges profit and turnover up despite building safety approval delays

Hill Group has reported increased profit and record turnover despite saying building safety regulation continued to put the brakes on schemes getting out of the ground.

The housebuilder, in its annual results, reported turnover of £1.16bn for the year to 31 March, up marginally on the £1.15bn reported for the previous year.

The firm increased completions by 18% to 3,329, while pre-tax profit rose from £90.5m to £92.5m.

The Essex-based housebuilder said its total private completions through its Hill Residential division rose by 39% but its average selling price fell from £613,000 to £520,000 due to it building a greater proportion of homes as apartments in London, Cambridge and Oxford.

But it said its partnerships business saw a number of projects delayed due to time taken to get approval from the Building Safety Regulator under the new ‘gateway’ system for high-rise buildings.

It added: “Hill Partnerships had a satisfactory year, however adversely affected by delayed starts on a number of high-risk buildings in London caused by protracted gateway approval processes.”

The firm’s founder and chief executive Andy Hill said the firm is “well positioned” to deliver on its ambition to double turnover to £2.3bn by 2030.

The firm added 10,000 homes to its development pipeline in the year, spending £54.6m on new land and committing to pay a further £44.1m. Its year end work in progress rose from £638.9m to £733.9m.

Its development pipeline stands at over 42,000 units, with around 10,800 homes with planning approval. It said its longer-term strategic pipeline includes 29,900 units owned or controlled under option or other promotion agreements

Its net cash at the end of the year was £129.1m, up from £118.3m, with no borrowings from the RCF.

Last month, Hill completed the acquisition of Cambridge East with Homes England. The site is planned to deliver more than 10,000 homes and three million sq ft of commercial space.