Barratt commits to building 25% of new homes using Modern Methods of Construction within 5 years
5 February 2020Barratt’s half year results indicate a 9.1% increase in half year completions up to 8,314 units – the highest for twelve years - and sets out plans to build 1-in-4 of all new homes using MMC by 2025. This will include timber frames, large block and off-site construction.
The company’s half-year report states: “Timber frame construction is a sustainable, low energy method of manufacturing, built in factories to high standards. In June 2019, we acquired Oregon, a manufacturer of timber frames. Oregon was already one of our key timber frame suppliers, providing high quality products and excellent customer service.
“The experienced Oregon management team continue to lead our timber frame business and the integration of Oregon into the Group is proceeding well. Our core English house types have now been designed for Oregon timber frames and the first frames on English sites have been erected during the half year. We expect to deliver over 800 timber frames from Oregon to our sites this year.”
On the subject of carbon emissions the company confirmed that it had signed an open letter to the government along with 127 other businesses to urge acceptance of the 2050 target to make the UK fully carbon neutral.
“In January 2020 the Board approved our own new challenging science-based carbon reduction targets. In our own operations we will aim to reduce carbon emissions by 29% from by 2025.
“We are working with Innovate UK on AIMCH, a research project to compare issues such as embodied carbon in homes and the generation of waste between offsite and traditional build methods”
For the half year to December 2019 the company had a turnover of £2.26bn with pretax profit of £423m representing an operational margin of 19%.
