UK Coal’s property division is expected to report a £30m rise in profits this year, following ‘significant progress’ in developing the portfolio.

In a trading update released today, the company said overall trading in the period since the update in April had been ‘in line with expectations’.

Harworth Estates, the official name for UK Coal’s property arm, expects to make an overall profit of £53.5m, up £30.6m from last year’s figure of £22.9m.

It added that further significant progress has been made in developing the group’s property portfolio, which had increased in value to £398m on June 30 this year. This is in comparison with £344m at the same time last year.

UK Coal estimates that its portfolio land value in 2012, which includes the benefit of anticipated planning consents, has grown to £900 million – up 12.5% this year.

In the past year, an extra 11 sites were added to the originally identified 60, giving a total pipeline of 71 projects covering a developable area of 3,326 acres. This equates into 29m sq ft of employment space and 20,000 housing plots.

UK Coal recently received planning consent on three sites: a housing scheme of 80 units at Sharlston, West Yorkshire,; an employment scheme of 500,000 sq ft at Chatterley Valley in Staffordshire and a small business park at Riccall, in Selby, North Yorkshire.

Topics