Countryside Properties is still on a record-breaking high, with its chairman and directors confidently predicting further good progress, despite national worries about shortages of building land.

"Our land holdings are an increasingly important asset and give us considerable confidence, having regard to growing concerns in the industry about land supply," Alan Cherry, MBE, wrote in his preliminary report to shareholders this month.

The report reveals good progress has been made throughout the company and that the Brentwood based developer is still expanding outside its native Essex.

Group turnover increased by 23 per cent to a record £251.8m (as against £204m in 1998) and operating profit increased by 28 per cent to £24.3m (£19m in 1998).

Other figures - profit before taxation, earnings per share, return on capital and return on shareholders's funds - all showed a healthy upswing from last year.

Countryside has also increased its landholdings, and the board is recommending an increased final dividend of 3p per share (2.5p last year) which, added to the interim dividend of 1.5p amounts to a total one for the year of 4.5p, a 20 per cent increase on last year.

In all areas, residential development, which includes its share on the Greenwich Millennium Village project starting this month, and commercial building and design, the picture is one of increasing activity.

After reviewing the overall position Mr Cherry said prospects for the group had never been better.

He commented: "We have a strong forward sales position for both new speculative housebuilding and design, and build contracting.

"Our urban regeneration programme is expanding and opportunities are being further enhanced by our skills and experience in this activity."

A Countryside Properties subsidiary which works with local authorities to regenerate run-down estates is moving out of the company HQ building in Warley - to expand into more space at the "gateway" to Brentwood.

Countryside in Partnership is leaving Countryside House, itself only open a year or so, to move into Academy Place which after being opened in February 1991 with a flourish by Trafalgar House Developments ran straight into the collapse of the property market, and struggled for years to find tenants.

Now Brentwood's top builders are expanding their empire by moving into it. Over several decades Countryside Properties has not only weathered recessions but, thanks to the astute guidance of its founder and chairman Alan Cherry, has prospered by keeping one step ahead of the game.

No more so than with the formation of Countryside in Partnership - established just at the time public and private sector partnerships formed to breathe new life into old estates were becoming politically desirable.

Now the company is working with local authorities as far apart as Peckham and Merseyside, creating new homes out of old and often derelict sites.

Its current building programme contains over 3,100 new homes (valued at £178m), with 90 per cent of them being built on brownfield sites.

As a result turnover in the past 12 months has increased by 20 per cent, and increases of a similar nature are being predicted for the current year.

David Everett, managing director of Countryside in Partnership said the decision to concentrate on estate regeneration had proved extremely successful and the company now has offices in London, Warrington and Redditch as well as in Brentwood.

"We are also involved in a number of initiatives to promote construction innovation, and we are creating successful sustainable developments using the resources of the Countryside Group" he added.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.