According to the firm, this will involve initially focusing on homes close to the end of construction to aid customers “who were expecting to move into their new home over recent weeks”.
The restart, Bellway said, would allow it to achieve a limited number of sales completions in the coming weeks, although this would depend on customers’ ability to complete and supply chain capacity “to safely support the industry”.
From August 1, 2019, to April 26 2020, Bellway achieved 6,506 homes sales completions against 6,596 during the equivalent period the previous year. It said 493 of these were completed on or after March 23 2020.
Its order book “remains substantial” at a value of £1,567 million as of April 26 2020 (April 28 2019 - £1,655 million.
Meanwhile, Persimmon said it had experienced a “strong start” before the UK lockdown, with the average private sales rate per site around 10% ahead year-on-year during the first 11 weeks.
The volume housebuilder said customer enquiries had “remained at good levels” throughout the lockdown, “providing some encouragement on the resilience of demand”. Its current forward sales position to date stands at £2.4 billion against last year’s £2.7 billion.
Dave Jenkinson, Persimmon’s CEO, said: "Our strong financial position and liquidity has enabled us to maintain our operational capability by retaining all staff on full pay through this period, without recourse to any government financial assistance; to offer necessary support to our suppliers, subcontractors and local tradespeople; and to maintain our community and charity programmes, despite the economic shock of COVID-19.”
Persimmon has begun a phased restart to sites, with new measures to be “strictly enforced” by a specialist team and a “COVID-19 Passport to Work” guiding site operations.
