Progress in this direction has been impressive. In the first half of last year it sold just 15 homes, but this grew to 47 in the six months to December 2013. By June this year, this is expected to have grown to 140 and further to 270 in the next financial year. To accommodate this rate of growth, Inland has been busy growing its land bank, which, if current sites under negotiation are included, will have doubled in the past 18 months to nearly 4,000 plots.
Recent additions include a site in Southampton, and options on two sites in Little Chalfont and Holmer Green, both in Buckinghamshire. These sites have the potential for 620 plots with a gross development value (GDV) of £115m. More recently, two further sites have been acquired in Acton, West London and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, with options on another two sites at Frating and Boreham in Essex. These four have a GDV of £73m.
The High Wycombe site illustrates the company's forward thinking in that the five acre site, which may deliver 50 residential units, is adjacent to land that could be acquired and used to build a further 500 homes. This is a long-term objective because the five acre site is currently occupied by a tenant until 2017. This produces rental income of £77,000 a year and takes Inland's total annual rental income from its commercial property portfolio up to around £610,000. Additional revenue of £7.6m has been raised through the sale of 48 residential plots at Drayton Garden Village to a major house builder.
Inland has also taken a major step towards proceeding with proposals to develop the former Ministry of Defence site at Wilton Park in Beaconsfield. This presents the possibility of building up to 350 very high value homes, and while no GDV figure is available, it will easily be the largest single project undertaken by Inland. As with Drayton Garden Village, the project will be held in an off-balance sheet entity.
