“THE resilience of the UK economy” and its “disciplined approach to mortgage lending” have laid the foundations for an “excellent” performance by York housebuilder Persimmon.

Shareholders heard today how the Fulford headquartered firm currently boasts forward sales totalling £2.56 billion, 11 per cent higher than this time last year.

Persimmon’s chairman Nicholas Wrigley told the Annual General Meeting, held at York Racecourse, that the group’s operational performance “continues to be excellent”, stating: “The prevailing disciplined approach to mortgage lending is enabling customers to buy newly built homes on attractive but sustainable terms.

“Our focus on building family housing at affordable prices provides a compelling choice for potential new home buyers and has attracted 6 per cent more visitors to our development sites than last year at this stage.”

Mr Wrigley said the group’s success comes “despite the continued difficulties encountered with planning delays”. He reported how Persimmon has opened 67 of the 90 new sites planned for the first half of the year, with the group now developing 382 active sales outlets across the UK.

Although the business was facing what it described as particularly strong comparatives from the first quarter of last year, it’s weekly private sales rate per site since February 27, when it reported its 2016 final results, is 12 per cent ahead of last year, resulting in a sales rate which is now 4 per cent ahead for the year to date.

Persimmon now has 8,928 new homes sold forward into the private ownership market with an average selling price of around £229,500, which is up 4.1 per cent over the prior year.

Mr Wrigley said: “New sales outlets opened across the UK continue to support our margin progression, due to the associated lower land cost recoveries, which has been aided further by some modest price improvement through the Spring period so far.

“During the period we continued to identify good opportunities to acquire new land to support the future growth of the business.”

The AGM also heard how Persimmon’s directors have concluded a one year extension of the maturity date of its £300 million Revolving Credit Facility, out to 31 March 2022, with the company’s five relationship banks.

The company also revealed a Capital Return Plan, launched in 2012, will deliver £629 million more to shareholders than originally planned through a capital surplus of £1.5 million, or £4.85 per share, with 110p per share to paid as a divident on July 3.