Housebuilder Cruden has reported a profit dip of £1.5 million to £9m after a fall in private home sales but says it is "comfortable" with the wider housing market as Britain moves towards Brexit.
The housebuilder put the sales drop down to timing issues in the development process, with the company selling 158 homes in the year to March compared with 280 the year before, it said in its annual report.
The firm said it is anticipated that this number will top 220 by the end of the same time next year, as it also hailed 19 consecutive years in profit.
Group turnover was £188.6m, down from £200.6m last year but turnover for construction activity concentrating on building affordable homes for housing associations, local authorities and other publicly funded clients increased by 4% to £167m.
Cruden said its forward order book in the publicly-funded construction area has continued to grow as the group has geared up to help meet Scottish Government affordable housing targets.
The firm said average house sale value increased to £270,000, set against £226,000 the previous year due to the "diverse range" of homes being sold.
Staff numbers at the company, which has offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh, increased since March to 655, while and in the east of Scotland worker numbers have grown by approximately 12%, coinciding with a move to a new building in the Scottish capital. The group is continuing its recruitment drive.
Kevin Reid, Cruden Group managing director, said: "Whilst the outcome of Brexit remains uncertain, we are comfortable with the housing market currently.
"We believe that our range of housing for sale in all sectors of the market represents good value.
"We have always focused on affordability in our housing offering, both for sale and for rent, and we can take reassurance from the metrics in this regard."
Mr Reid said: “To have had 19 consecutive years of profitable trading is a tremendous achievement, especially against the challenging economic backdrop we’ve had during this period.
“Despite unsettled economic conditions, demand in the housing market remains encouraging and we continue to see strong interest in our diverse range of quality, affordable and energy efficient family homes.
"The continued availability of Help to Buy (Scotland) has also been beneficial to our first-time buyers and has given them a welcome first step on to the housing ladder."
He said: "We have a strong forward order book and this will generate increased levels of activity in the construction of much needed affordable housing for our clients, and their prospective tenants.
"The outlook looks positive for the year ahead and I expect our turnover to increase in line with this, and with our own exciting future plans for our next phase of private housing developments in key locations across central Scotland.
“The skills shortage remains an industry-wide issue, so ongoing recruitment, training and skills development is a key focus at Cruden.
"We are actively seeking motivated people at all levels within the business to contribute to our future growth and are delighted with our increased complement of 90 apprentices in training at the Cruden academy."
The group - which has approximately 60 active sites across Scotland at any one time - said it is now in its 75th year of operation and added it will continue to focus on "innovation, energy efficiency, regeneration and affordability,".
About 15% of its construction workforce is made up of apprentices, making the firm one of the largest such employers in Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here