By Ellis Butcher

Last updated at 13:46, Tuesday, 07 August 2012

The developer leading a £50 million scheme to transform a housing estate has been credited with helping its parent company achieve strong half-year financial results.

Lovell, the affordable housing and regeneration company building a series of luxury new homes in Raffles, Carlisle, is part of the much larger Morgan Sindall Group, which specialises in construction and regeneration.

The parent group has released a solid set of half year results.

For the first six months to June 30, the group’s profit before tax was £20.3m – up on last year’s £19.5m – against total revenue of £1 billion.

The group reports a sound order book of £3.2bn of work supplemented by a £1.8bn pipeline of regeneration schemes.

A further £0.6bn of potential work is also at preferred developer stage.

The group said the performance of Lovell made “a strong contribution to the results.”

Lovell works with housing associations and local authorities to build new affordable housing developments and major refurbishment and regeneration programmes.

Lovell, which has an office on the estate’s Dobinson Road, was chosen by Carlisle City Council to create around 500 new homes in Raffles.

So far, 225 have been built. Lovell is currently focussed on a 39-home, mixed-tenure development of two and three-bedroom homes at Brookside, off Shadygrove Road and backing onto the newly-refurbished Heysham Park. The company also recently completed 23 homes at Seatoller Close, part of a 66-home regeneration scheme at Morton, for Riverside Carlisle.

“Despite difficult trading conditions, our sales are in line with 2011,” said Stewart Davenport, Lovell managing director.

“Our prospects remain good for the second half of this year with Lovell continuing to focus on mixed-tenure regeneration where we see future demand for affordable housing and long-term investment value.”

First published at 11:25, Tuesday, 07 August 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk