Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2023
Our Future
Our focus on today and our future...
Our Legacy
...builds on our past and strengthens our legacy.
Welcome From Our CEO
We are pleased with the results, which were in line with our expectations.
I believe we have performed well against a slowing economy, rising interest rates and high inflation. I am clear that our focus on high quality land and development in prime locations has helped us to deliver a resilient set of results
EVOLVING STRATEGY
As the Group strategy continues to progress, we have evolved our strategic framework to embed our Responsible Business commitments. Whilst the fundamentals and the commercial medium term objectives of our strategy remain unchanged, we now also measure ourselves on five pillars: performance, people, partners, places, and planet.
Although the primary measure of success is financial performance, we know that we also need to make a wider impact on a variety of factors that will help ensure we remain the high performing, responsible long term business we want to be.
Our existing Strategic Pillars:
Safety and Environment
People
Growth
Delivery
Our New Integrated Strategy:
Performance
People
Partners
Places
Planet
Our existing Responsible Business Strategy:
People
Partners
Places
Planet
Highlights of 2023
Financial highlights
Group Revenue
£359.4m
Profit Before Tax
£37.3m
Return on Capital Employed
9.9%
Capital Employed
£416.7m
Net Asset Value per Ordinary Share
306p
Dividend per Ordinary Share
7.33p
Responsible business highlights
People are at the heart of our business. We succeed by investing in our own people, improving internal communications, creating a sense of shared purpose, and via policies that include industry-leading approaches on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), continuing professional development (CPD), pay and reward structures, employee wellbeing, and health and safety.
Highlights
- We launched our Health and Wellbeing Strategy which is guided by the vision that our people are healthy, fulfilled, and feel supported and empowered. A broad range of resources, events and support was provided throughout the year.
- Nearly 50 of our people completed Mental Health First Aid training to provide support to our people and partners.
- We increased the gender diversity of our workforce to 28% female and reduced our gender pay gap to 20.98%
We will succeed by developing long term, productive partnerships with those outside the business, through fair terms and conditions (T&Cs), best practice, safety, and through our unwavering commitment to high standards, quality and delivery – in everything we do.
Highlights
- We engaged with experts at the Living Wage Foundation to understand the requirements for us to secure accreditation.
- We engaged business membership organisations including the UK Green Building Council, Business in the Community (BITC) and the Yorkshire Climate Action Coalition to collaborate on key industry issues.
We generate impact through placemaking: via our charitable and community work, as well as by a commitment to creating healthy, high quality communities and neighbourhoods that people can live and work in – and enjoy, for generations.
Highlights
- We concluded our charity partnership with Place2Be raising over £55,000 for this amazing charity.
- We contributed over £225,000 of value to our charity and community partners across our communities.
- Our people contributed over 3,000 volunteering hours to a diverse range of community and charity partners.
- We were a founding member of the Sheffield Pride of Place Board.
- We developed our Early Careers Strategy which is due to be published in 2024.
Our positive impacts are delivered not only through the sustainability targets in our Responsible Business Strategy, but also by adopting a sustainable mindset across the whole Group. We measure success not just by short-term targets but by the lasting impact our sustainable approach generates.
Highlights
- We reduced our direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 14% from our 2019 baseline in alignment with our decarbonisation trajectory.
- We reduced our electricity usage by 23% and gas usage by 39%, from our 2019 baselines.
- We engaged the Carbon Trust to support the Group to monitor our Scope 3 GHG emissions.
- Our people-led Group Climate Forum monitors delivery of our net zero carbon (NZC) framework and oversees knowledge transfer and innovation across the Group.
