Crest Nicholson plans job cuts and warns on profits, blaming budget uncertainty
The housebuilder Crest Nicholson has warned of job cuts and worse than expected profits after a summer of “subdued” sales amid uncertainty around the possible property taxes in the budget.The Surrey-based company said it planned to close one divisional office and cut 50 roles, including staff at that site and “selective other roles” across the business.Crest said its adjusted profit before tax for the year to 31 October would be at the low end or slightly below the previous estimated range of £28m to £38m, “reflecting a housing market that has remained subdued through the summer, and the continued uncertainty surrounding government tax policy ahead of the forthcoming budget” on 26 November.It cautioned that near-term market conditions were likely to remain challenging.Anthony Codling, a housing analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said budget uncertainty had “wiped out the autumn selling season, a critical period for Crest with an October year-end”.
The late timing of the budget has led to a long period of speculation around changes to stamp duty, as well as potential income tax rises and a new mansion tax.Rival housebuilder Taylor Wimpey has also reported a drop in sales in the vital autumn period, and the London estate agent Foxtons has taken a hit as potential buyers are holding back purchases.Jennie Daly, the Taylor Wimpey chief executive, has urged the government to announce more support for first-time buyers to revive the cooling property market.Crest said it had completed 1,691 homes in the past financial year, at the lower end of its range of 1,700 to 1,900 homes, including 35% affordable units.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionIts weekly rate of open-market sales for each site was 0.
51 for the year, compared with 0,48 in 2024, although the rate declined to 0,45 in the last quarter of its financial year,Crest has sold five land parcels from larger sites as it trims its landbank, and is working on a new house type range,“Crest is in the early stages of a multi-year turnaround plan,” Codling said.
“Turnarounds are very rarely linear, and we believe that overall they are on the right trajectory (right-sizing the landbank and right-sizing the business), and the current headwinds could become tailwinds as the government continues to look for ways to stimulate new housing supply,”
Woman killed herself after south London hospital neglect, coroner concludes
A woman killed herself after a south London psychiatric unit failed to search her possessions adequately, a coroner has concluded.Michelle Sparman, a personal trainer and call dispatcher for the Metropolitan police from Battersea, south-west London, died on 28 August 2021 at Kingston hospital, four days after trying to take her own life.The assistant coroner, Bernard Richmond KC, concluded that Sparman, 48, died of a hypoxic brain injury, determining she had died by “suicide whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed, contributed to by neglect”.He determined four probable causes of death: her struggles with anxiety and depression, including impulsiveness; a “difficult relationship” with her ex-partner, including “intemperate and excessive texting” from him, which called into question her mental health and fitness to be a mother; her “justifiable feelings of abuse” as a result of his behaviour, and inadequate searching on leaving and entering Rose Ward, a locked 20-bed female-only mental health unit at Queen Mary’s hospital in Roehampton.He cited her perimenopausal symptoms and financial and professional problems as possible causes
‘It’s cruel’: relatives of residents react to proposal to close Lancashire care homes
Elderly residents of care home left anxious after Reform-led county council started consultation over plans for its closureFor Marjorie Aspden, 95, Woodlands care home in Clayton-le-Moors in Accrington was the perfect place to spend her twilight years. When she looked out from the window of her room, she saw the woods that she played in as a young girl and felt a sense of contentment.Now she and hundreds of other elderly residents are facing uncertainty after the Reform-led Lancashire county council announced it would consult on plans to close care homes in the area.Last month it began a consultation on moving residents out of five local authority care homes and day centres into other premises. The consultation closes in mid-December and the cabinet will make a final decision on the closures in February
Why is social mobility such an obsession? | Letters
In recent discussions about changes in both the curriculum and forms of examination in English secondary education, one ambition has often been named: that of increasing social mobility.Quite why this aim remains unexamined is unfortunate. Nobody would wish any child to be refused access and support for any number of occupations. But we surely have to ask, as successive governments have not, why a focus on this aspiration obscures the much more socially radical and equitable aim of making all occupations viable, rewarded and respected.Surely there is already sufficient cut-throat competition within the English class system without enshrining ideas which focus on diminishing the value of jobs and occupations to be “escaped” from
‘Better and cheaper’: the case for prostate cancer screening among black men
Junior Hemans was having a routine health check in 2014 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, at the age of 51. He knew there was an increased risk of the disease in black men so asked to have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which was not initially included.“And when I went, they said I had a raised PSA level for my age,” Hemans said. “[The diagnosis] was a shock … because I had no symptoms.”The PSA test, which is used to check for conditions including prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate, is not routinely offered on the NHS at present
Stephen Dawson obituary
My friend Stephen Dawson, who has died of cancer aged 78, had the questionable luck of being a newly minted urologist when Aids first struck in London in the early 1980s.The son of Philip, a nuclear physicist at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, and May, a housewife, Steve was born in London, went to King Alfred’s school, Wantage, and studied medicine at University College Hospital before qualifying as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in the late 70s. The decade that followed was both clinically fascinating and emotionally challenging.Working in genitourinary clinics around London, Steve helped chart the rise of HIV-opportunistic diseases while being able to do little to treat them. It was typical of him that, in 1988, he left Aids medicine in London for the professionally less glamorous Slough, to work as the first consultant in genitourinary medicine in east Berkshire
Two-thirds of nurses in UK work while unwell, says union
Nurses across the UK are working while unwell in understaffed hospitals, with stress as the leading cause of illness, according to research.A survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of more than 20,000 nursing staff found that 66% had worked when they should have been on sick leave, up from 49% in 2017.Just under two-thirds (65%) of respondents cited stress to be the biggest cause of illness, up from 50% in 2017. Seven out of 10 said they had worked in excess of their contracted hours at least once a week, with about half (52%) doing so unpaid.The NHS has more than 25,000 nursing vacancies across England
Starmer pleads for government to unite in fightback after difficult week
‘Deeply shocking’: Nigel Farage faces fresh claims of racism and antisemitism at school
Most Reform UK voters would back wealth tax on very rich, poll suggests
Reform would ‘cut benefits for EU nationals and hike NHS immigration surcharge’
Reform MP invites Mahmood to join his party, saying he ‘welcomes’ and ‘recognises’ her rhetoric – as it happened
Shabana Mahmood puts the signs up: Britain is full. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish