We either sell engineered land for residential or commercial purposes, or retain land to grow our income generation portfolio – either through leasing directly developed commercial units or renting out land.

The proceeds of sales and any additional capital raised is then used to fund the development cycle to assure further growth of the company, including the acquisition of new sites to complement our existing portfolio.

We sell land for residential uses to housebuilders including Barratt Homes, Taylor Wimpey, Harron Homes and Avant Homes. We have also sold land for commercial uses to local, national and international firms, including Rolls-Royce, Aldi and a range of manufacturers and retailers.

Some of our landholdings are retained to grow our income portfolio by directly developing our own commercial units for lease. This has been typical on sites such as Logistics North, the Advanced Manufacturing Park and Gateway 36 to tackle the reported shortage of commercial units in the North of England.

Much of our land portfolio also lends itself to low-carbon energy production; once planning consent is secured for this sort of development, we then lease land to third party low-carbon energy producers including wind and solar developers who pay us a royalty on generation during the lifetime of their leases.

Key Achievements in 2018

In 2018, 1,049 residential plots were sold across nine parcels at an average of c.£30,000/plot (at book value). 1.15m sq ft of consented commercial land was also sold across four parcels for a total consideration of £30.9m, delivering a profit on sale of £1.0m.