LiveWest sees small rise in underlying surplus despite increasing investment

Total turnover increased by £6m to £306m. Within this, social housing lettings income climbed by £23m to £226m because of the delivery of 788 new affordable homes, a full year’s income from developments in 2022-23 and the annual rent increase.

LiveWest said it sold fewer homes on the open market in 2023-24, at 107 units compared with 132 in the previous year. Profit from open market sales fell from £10.9m to £7.6m, while turnover from these sales dropped by £21m to reach £36m.

The housing association said this was a result of the reduced volume of homes sold as contractors delayed starting schemes due to a “slower housing market”.

Meanwhile, LiveWest reported 285 shared ownership sales, generating a profit of £6m – a rise from £5.1m the previous year. Turnover from first tranche sales rose by £2m to reach £33m.

Operating costs remained the same during the year, at £239m. However, within this, operating costs on social housing lettings increased by £14m to reach £170m, which LiveWest said was largely due to inflation and an increase in maintenance expenditure.

Maintenance expenditure on responsive, cyclical and major repairs rose by £13m, to £102m. LiveWest said this resulted from high volumes of repairs and continued investment in components, building safety and energy efficiency.

Development

The housing association spent £176m on building new homes in 2023-24, up from £152m in the previous year.

Despite this, its completions fell from 1,149 homes in 2022-23 to 899 homes in the last financial year.

Within this 899 total, 111 homes were for open market sale and 788 were affordable. The affordable homes were made up of 346 for social rent, 178 for affordable rent and 264 for shared ownership.

This was lower than the target of 900 new affordable homes and reflected “site-specific issues”, LiveWest said.

“Whilst this was below our target, as developers delayed start on sites due to a slowing housing market, the strength of our pipeline enabled us to still deliver at scale,” LiveWest’s chief executive Paul Crawford and chair Jacqueline Starr said in the financial results.

“Our development programme remains ambitious, with plans to deliver over 5,600 homes across all tenures in the next five years, of which 4,950 will be affordable homes. We continue to strengthen relationships with contractors and Homes England to build a strong and flexible development pipeline.”

LiveWest said that in 2024-25, it plans to build 950 new affordable homes, of which 665 will be for social and affordable rent, and to sell 370 homes through shared ownership and open market activity.

“In future years, we will aim to increase land-led schemes and the volume of development opportunities to ensure target delivery is achieved,” the housing association said.

Elsewhere, LiveWest reported current available facilities of £274m and £13m of available cash at year end, a drop from £365m and £12m respectively in the previous year.

Gearing stayed the same at 41 per cent.