Good year for regional housebuilder Hopkins Homes
A government drive to solve the housing crisis along with better market conditions have helped a local housebuilding firm to more than double its profits.
Award-winning, Woodbridge-based Hopkins Homes saw pre-tax profits rise 120% to more than £22.3million for the year ending April 2015.
The firm said it was thanks to an extended right-to-buy scheme, more land becoming available for development and discounted starter homes - which are part of a government plan to build a million homes by 2020.
Critics of the government say these schemes do not go far enough to towards meeting the sharp housing shortage, and cut down the number of affordable homes.
Hopkins Homes, which builds houses across the region, saw turnover lift to £92.3m, up for the year ending April 2015, up from £70.6m the year before.
Executive chairman James Hopkins said conditions for building firms had improved due to a number of factors.
“Improvements in the housing market, continued low interest rates, pro-housebuilding policies, and a wider understanding of the need to build more new houses have helped us to build and sell more houses and to increase profit margins,” he said.
“The pro-house building policies of the previous coalition government, particularly the National Planning Policy framework and help-to-buy schemes, have started to deliver results in the sector, helping both the supply and demand elements of the equation.
“There seems to be a general consensus and commitment across all political parties to solve this crisis, and the majority government that was elected in May provided house builders with the continuity and stability required.
But Mr Hopkins said despite the market improving, he believed more still needs to be done to solve the chronic shortage of housing - by both central and local governments and house builders.
Challenges included local communities raising objections to housing developments, and a restrictive planning system operated by local authorities.
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