Inflation and labour shortages derail association’s plan to build 1,100 affordable homes in 2021/22 but it boosts turnover through strong sales
LiveWest has become the latest housing association to miss its development target for 2021/22, citing inflation and shortages of labour and materials.
The 38,000-home association, in its financial statements for the year to 31 March, reported that it completed 800 affordable homes in 2021/22 around 72% of its original 1,100-home target for the year.
It said: “Our development programme continued to be impacted by the pandemic which together with material and labour shortages resulted in significant handover delays.”
The figure of 800 was however higher than the 701 completed in the pandemic-hit 2020/21. It’s overall development completions, including market sale, increased from 785 homes to 911 year-on-year.
LiveWest, which operates across the south west, also said it expects delivery to be “significantly higher” this year as it has a ‘healthy’ pipeline of 3,332 plots owned and in development.
It is targeting the completion of 1,050 homes in 2022/23 , which would bring it almost back up to its pre-pandemic level. The organisation completed 1,158 homes in 2019/20.
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LiveWest is targeting the completion of 7,000 new homes over five years. Last September it secured £123.6m of grant from Homes England to build 2,550 homes under a strategic partnership deal and it is also participating in the affordable homes programme. It said this grant funding will enable it to “reduce its reliance on section 106 development opportunities”, under which it forward purchases affordable homes built by housebuilders.
Despite the drop in completions, LiveWest increased its annual turnover by 11% to £271m and its pre-tax surplus from £46m to £53m by 15%.
The surplus was boosted by an increase in shared ownership sales revenue. The association sold 294 shared ownership homes in 2021/22, compared to 258 the previous year.
Total sales turnover jumped from £50.47m to £70m, while sales profit rose 45% from £7.7m to £11.24m.
Over the past few weeks, several housing associations have reported missing their annual completions target, including Moat, Sanctuary, Hyde and EMH Group (see box below),
Housing association financial statements 2021/22
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Peabody boosts turnover and surplus due to shared ownership staircasing Housing association giant plans to start work on 7,000 new homes by March 2023
Sanctuary misses development target by a third due to ‘pandemic effects’ Housing association giant undershoots target but increases completions 34% year-on-year
Vivid increases development to above pre-pandemic level 33,000-home housing association completes 1,400 homes
Platform scales back targets for development and energy efficiency 46,000-home housing association increases turnover boosted by increased shared ownership sales
Later living giant Anchor posts £24.4m surplus following loss last year Housing association ‘on track’ with increased 5,700-home development plan
Hyde delivers fewer social homes than expected due to ‘delays and shortages’ 48,000-home housing association delivers 74% of affordable target, but hits lowered development target overall.
EMH Group misses development target by 40% Housing association says build hit by planning delays, materials shortages and pandemic impacts but is confident of hitting five-year target
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