Award winning housebuilder, Linden Homes has set its sights on continued growth and a renewed focus on fostering the next generation of talent as the New Year dawns.
2015 saw the top five housebuilder achieve positive progress on margins, from 15.1% (2014) to 16.0%, make strides towards further business enhancements, implementing operational restructuring and other business improvement initiatives as well as receiving industry recognition for its sustainability efforts.
The year ended on a high when the housebuilder hosted Prime Minister David Cameron at its award-winning development Kingsteignton, Devon, where he announced plans to introduce a series of further reforms to the planning system, helping to strengthen housebuilding across the UK and create opportunities for home ownership.
Linden Homes Group Managing Director, Andrew Richards said: “2015 was another progressive year for the business. The acquisition of Shepherd Homes accelerates Linden Homes’ growth plans in the North and along with 100% of Linden Homes land required for 2016 financial year in place, and 90% of land secured for 2017, we move into the New Year in a robust position.
“The recent Autumn Statement indicated positive advances and an ongoing commitment to the longer term future of housebuilding and gives us reassurance that the Government is wholly committed to driving the delivery of much needed homes to people across the country.
“Of course, our challenge as housebuilders will be in delivering these homes: availability of land, planning delays and skills shortages are just some of the issues we tackle every day.
It is encouraging to hear about new reforms to planning and freeing up of land for housebuilding; all of which will hopefully unlock new sites for development. We look forward to hearing more detail on these plans in due course.”
As a regular contributor to Government consultations and debate, Linden Homes will also be engaging with content on subjects such as National Planning Policy as well as closely watching with interest the outcome of the CIL/Section 106 consultation and the local elections in May including the GLA and Mayoral election in London.
As part of its ‘future talent’ programme, Linden Homes is sponsoring 2016’s nationwide search by the Association of Women in Property (WiP) for the industry’s most promising student. The National Student Awards is run annually by WiP, an organisation which works with businesses and other organisations to help redress the gender imbalance in the sector.
The ‘future talent’ programme includes trainee and apprenticeship schemes and a graduate development programme covering a range of functions including commercial, operations, technical, sales and marketing, and support services. These programmes allow candidates to gain a full insight into the business, by working with various teams across the business, whilst gaining training around their working day.
Galliford Try, Linden Homes’ parent company entered the Job Crowd league table as one of the top 100 graduate companies to work for thanks to the career development programmes offered by the company. Galliford Try also came within the top 10 for construction and civil engineering companies for graduates to develop their skills.
Andrew concludes: “We recognise the need to increase knowledge and understanding of the industry and have been actively working with organisations like Women in Property and more widely within schools, colleges and universities we hope to encourage more students to embark on a career in construction.”
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Media can contact Tracy Mannion, Claire Cathersides or Emma Cox at Remarkable Group on 01962 893863 for more information, images and interviews with Linden Homes.
