By Kristy Dorsey
Persimmon’s sales offices and show homes in England will re-open today, but activity in Scotland remains at a standstill pending further guidance from the Scottish Government.
In a trading update on Thursday, the UK’s most profitable housebuilder said on-site sales activity will resume in England with “strict new social distancing” and additional hygiene measures in place. Sales consultations will initially be restricted to pre-booked appointments.
This follows a phased return to work on its construction sites in England and Wales more than two weeks ago. As of last week, Persimmon had restored approximately 65% of its production capacity in areas where it has been allowed to do so.
READ MORE: Construction activity drops at record rate amid coronavirus crisis
The move follows the Prime Minister’s national address on Sunday in which he announced the easing of some lockdown measures in England. Persimmon chief executive David Jenkinson credited his company’s swift response to the fact that it chose to continue paying all staff in full throughout the enforced closure, rather than putting employees on furlough.
“Persimmon decided not to access any form of Government support during the shutdown period and has maintained its commitments to its colleagues and communities in full throughout,” he said.
READ MORE: Jobs go as Oban construction firm falls victim to coronavirus
“Now, as we re-start activity, this decision is also enabling us to get back to work swiftly and safely. Persimmon is open for business and we are looking forward to welcoming customers back to site and continuing to play our part in rebuilding Britain’s economy.”
During the eight weeks to May 10, the group secured 1,351 gross private sales reservations and a total of 1,300 legal completions. Persimmon said cancellation levels remained “in line with historic trends”.
Even so, the company’s shares closed nearly 5% lower yesterday as investors pondered the pandemic’s impact on demand going forward.
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