Clarion breaks its own annual house building record

Clarion completed 2,276 homes in 2021/22, its highest ever annual development figure.

The 125,000-home housing association giant revealed in a trading update it increased its annual completions 7% from the 2,126 completed in the pandemic-affected previous year.

Four in 10 of the 2,276 homes built through Clarion’s development arm Latimer were for affordable tenures, with a similar proportion (around 44%) for shared ownership. It also built 330 homes for private sale.

The group’s outright market and shared ownership sales income rebounded following a slump last year, increasing 44% from £213.3m to £307.4m, with an increased margin of 13%.

This increase in sales income helped boost the group’s turnover, which rose 12% to £1.1bn, smashing through the £1bn barrier for the first time. The group’s full year pre-tax surplus rose 37% to £167m.

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Richard Cook, group development director at Clarion said the organisation has ‘bold plans to build even greater numbers” of homes. In its financial statements last year Clarion said it has a long-term goal of building 4,000 homes a year.

Cook said: “We are proud to have achieved another record-breaking year at Latimer, part of our drive to achieve sustainable year-on-year growth in our new housing delivery”

“Building affordable housing is what drives us forward every day,” he added.

Clarion’s current pipeline stands at 21,742 homes. It has secured a number of key planning approvals since Christmas, including permission to build more than 1,400 homes on the former Yorkshire chemical works and First Bus depot site at Kirkstall Road in the centre of Leeds (pictured). It has also been given the green light for a 461-home scheme on the site of the former Boddingtons brewery in Manchester and a 349-home scheme in Attleborough, Norfolk in partnership with housebuilder Hill Group.

The selected figures, which are unaudited, will be followed by the release of Clarion’s full annual financial statements later in the year.

The update comes days after the Housing Ombudsman issued Clarion with a finding of severe maladministration for the group’s “repeated failures” to respond to complaints from a tenant. The resident had regularly reported a leaking roof, damp and mould and cracks to the interior of her property.