CUMBRIA'S largest housebuilder is predicting that it will build more houses than originally forecast this year.

Story Homes, which has its headquarters at Kingmoor Park, Carlisle, has become the latest housebuilder to shrug off concerns that Brexit uncertainty might harm the housing market.

It has seen an increase in sales of about 50 per cent over the summer months compared with 2015.

Steve Errington, Story Homes' chief executive, told in-Cumbria.com that he was optimistic about the outlook.

He said: "I am confident that we are in good shape. We are on target to to deliver an extra almost 30 houses this year - 806 against 777."

Story Homes works in three regions - Cumbria and Scotland, the north east, and the rest of the north west.

In Cumbria it has live schemes in Carlisle, Houghton, Dalston, Lazonby, Appleby, Workington, Whitehaven and Kendal.

Mr Errington has ambitious plans to make the company one of the 20 largest within the UK within the next five years and the firm is targeting 1,400 homes by the 2018-19 financial year.

He said: "I was confident that we were trading strongly post-Brexit and, if anything, they have gone up and not down.

"As far as I am concerned we are past the post-Brexit uncertainty."

He added: "If you look at July and August combined we were targeting 60 sales but it is actually 90."

Mr Errington pointed out that June had been quieter than he expected, but sales overall in the summer were still up by 30 to 40 per cent.

He said that the short-term period of risk over the Brexit had passed but there was still uncertainty ahead.

The first would centre around the period when Article 50, which allows the UK to leave the EU, is invoked.

He believes this will be either late next year or in the early part of 2018, after the French and German electorates have voted in their national elections.

His prediction for the final period of risk is the date when the UK finally leaves the EU, which he predicts will be 2020 at the earliest.

Story Homes has arranged a new credit facility with Lloyds Bank, which lasts up to October 2021, to fund its expansion plans.

The firm's existing deal allowed them access to £52m and Mr Errington described the new deal as a "significant increase". The firm received advice on this from Rothschild & Co.

He also pointed out that the business has 12 new apprentices and two graduates starting work in September.

Story Homes has recently been admitted to The 5% Club, a national organisation whose members have pledged to have five per cent of their workforce as apprentices, sponsored students or graduate trainees.

Other members include Sellafield Ltd, Airbus, KPMG and Siemens.

Nationally, HMRC figures show that 104,200 properties were sold in July, down 16,000 from the same month last year.

But Persimmon Homes, another major housebuilder in Cumbria, said last week that sales in July - the first full month since the EU referendum result - were 17 per cent higher than in July 2015.