黑洞社区

Gleeson Homes will reduce its roles by 15% under a restructure aimed at cutting overheads by 拢4m a year.

The housebuilder, which specialises in urban regeneration, is reorganising its business after half-year results today showing pre-tax profit fell 34% from 拢24.7m to 拢16.1m for the six months to 31 December while turnover dipped 1.4% to 拢171m.

Graham Prothero, chief executive of Gleeson, told 黑洞社区 there would be a reduction in headcount of around 15% from its figure in November, the point at which the firm implemented a recruitment freeze.

But he said around two-thirds of these roles have already become vacant due to people leaving and recruitment being put on hold.

This leaves around 5% of Gleeson鈥檚 workforce 鈥� around 40 or 50 staff 鈥� that will be made redundant following a consultation process.

Prothero said the rapid growth of Gleeson had left it 鈥渁 little bit out of shape because we鈥檝e had to hire people to keep that delivery up鈥�, while the economic situation is making it more difficult to maintain levels of growth.

Gleeson doubled its completions to 2,000 over five years to 2022 and more than doubled its turnover from 拢147.2m to 拢334.6m between 2020 and 2022.

He said: 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 sacrifice quality of the products or customer service, but we did sacrifice a bit of efficiency. And then we ran into what we saw [after the mini-Budget] in September when the market was saying 鈥榳e might not want to buy a house for 10 years鈥�.鈥�

Under Gleeson鈥檚 restructure, three divisions will be merged into two, and regional teams will operate in a single structure supported by 鈥渓ean and focused central services.鈥� The redundancies will be people whose roles no longer fit into the new standardized structure, the firm said.

Prothero said he does not want to 鈥渓ose a minute鈥� because the recovery could be upon us 鈥渂efore we know鈥�. He added: 鈥淟et鈥檚 just reset, tighten the belt, and get ourselves fighting fit and ring ready, so when it does pick up we鈥檝e got a structure and a set of processes and people that are ready,鈥� said Prothero.

Gleeson鈥檚 slight drop in turnover was due to an 82% fall in revenue through it land business, with Gleeson Homes growing 11% in the half year. 

>>See also: Top 150 Contractors and Housebuilders table

>>See also: Gleeson pins falling sales on mini-Budget debacle

The number of homes sold by the business fell 4.1% to 894, and plots in its forward order book dropped to 319 from 618 last year.

But the firm said there are signs of a recovery in buyer confidence, with net reservations in the past four weeks doubling compared to the 10 weeks before Christmas.

The firm now expects to build between 1,650 and 1,850 homes in the full year, down on the 2,000 delivered last year. It had previously given a range of 1,600 to 2.000. Its pipeline remains stable at 16,561 plots compared to 16,814 plots in June last year.

Prothero also said Michael Gove鈥檚 proposed through changes to national planning policy would be a 鈥渄isingenuous undermining of the country鈥檚 resolve to build sufficient houses鈥�.

He also confirmed that Gleeson will be signing the developer pledge contract to remediate its own blocks within .