Henry Boot sees strong start to the year with land sales and planning boost

Henry Boot’s Hallam Land arm has had a strong start to the year and is on track to sell 3,500 plots in 2025. So far, it has completed 665 sales, exchanged on 912 more and has 2,490 under offer. Five new site acquisitions could deliver an additional 915 plots, bringing its total land bank to 105,087 plots. Following revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework, planning activity has picked up, with around 2,000 plots gaining approval in the past six months, including 1,007 this year, bringing total approved plots to 9,164 and 14,344 more awaiting a decision. The £124m development pipeline of Henry Boot’s HBD arm is weighted toward industrial and logistics, including three schemes in its joint venture with Feldberg.  In Birmingham, 67% of apartments at the newly completed Setl development are sold or reserved, while Manchester’s Island office project secured record rents with Virgin Media O2 and is drawing strong tenant interest. HBD has around 3.8m sq ft of industrial and logistics space with planning consent, offering scope to expand its pipeline over the next year. At the £1bn Golden Valley tech development near GCHQ in Cheltenham, two planning applications – covering 1m sq ft of commercial space and 1,000 homes – are due this summer, with construction set to start in later this year.  The scheme has £20m in government backing and £104m in forward funding from Cheltenham Borough Council. So far this year, HBD has completed or exchanged on three sales totalling £13.4m, averaging an 11% premium to December 2024 valuations. Tim Roberts, chief executive officer at Henry Boot, said: “Henry Boot has had an encouraging start to the year. Demand has been resilient for our prime property and, in particular, is strong for our quality residential land. “We already have 4,067 plots completed, exchanged or under offer, which will deliver meaningful profit over the next two years. There are also clear signs, following changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, that the planning system has improved, and our early move to resource Hallam to allow a fourfold increase in plot applications this year is already paying off. “We have seen so far little evidence that the recent global economic uncertainty has shaken our key markets. Recent cuts in, and the outlook for, interest rates are expected to stimulate demand. We therefore remain on track, although… due to the timing of key transactions, we expect the year again to be H2 weighted.” Image from Henry Boot