Great Places’ build programme hit by supply chain and planning delays

Great Places Housing Group missed its development target for the first three quarters of the year as it battled supply chain and planning issues.

The 24,000-home housing association said in an update this week it had completed 388 homes in nine months, which is below its “phased target” for the period set last year. The target has not been specified, although the group had previously said it is hoping to build 858 homes in the whole of 2021/22.

Great Places said the lower-than-expected completion rate “reflects continued delivery challenges around labour, materials, approvals and land registration.” It follows fellow housing association developer Sovereign halving its build rates in the first half of 2021/22 due to shortages of materials.

Great Places said it has revised down its projected surplus for the financial year slightly, from £20m to £19.5m, to take into account delays in development handovers, which led to £0.9m less rental income than expected.

However, Great Places said it has made £2m more from surplus on property sales, including shared ownership staircasing sales, Right to Acquire sales and sales to other housing associations, than expected. It said: “Demand for our shared ownership and outright sales products remains incredibly strong.”

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Despite the cut in forecast full-year surplus, the group’s surplus for the nine months was £1.1m ahead of budget at £16.5m.

The group’s turnover for the nine months is £117.8m and its operating surplus is £35.8m, compared to figures of £103m and £35.2m for the same period the previous year.

Last week Great Places announced it has appointed insider Helen Spencer to its leadership team as executive director of growth as it seeks to ramp up development to build 9,000 homes by 2028 and meet a corporate plan target of 11,000 over the next decade.