We have announced an increase in turnover and surplus in a strong set of annual accounts published today, in the first few days of August.

The accounts show that over the past year we have increased turnover to £271m (2019: £257m), with the proportion coming from social housing lettings increasing to 81%. Operating surplus climbed to £97m (2019: £83m) while our operating margin remained at 30%. Surplus before tax was £49m (2019: £45m excluding the one-off gain from acquisition accounting relating to Severn Vale).

Read our Annual Report and Financial Statements 2019 to 2020.

During the past year we increased the amount we invested in our existing homes through planned and non-planned maintenance to £39m, which included installing 745 new kitchens, 677 new bathrooms and 2,039 new heating systems to increase their energy efficiency.

We also continued our commitment to building new homes, investing £180m – more than three times our pre-tax surplus – and completing 1,029 homes, of which 969 were for rent or shared ownership. Sales of shared ownership and market sale housing contributed £50m to our annual turnover, the proceeds of which are being reinvested into building the 2,800 new homes the housing association aims to build over the next two years.

Core business

Chief finance officer Lee Gibson said: “It has been another successful year for Bromford as we continue to focus on delivering our strategic objectives. We’ve delivered efficiency savings from our mergers and continued to focus on our core business by completing the sale of our student housing portfolio. This has helped us achieve consistently strong results, while our financial performance is further demonstrated by the reduction in tenant arrears to 1.99%, well below our target of 3%.

“And this financial strength allows us to improve the services we provide to customers. During the year we completed the expansion of our neighbourhood coaching approach, meaning we now have a team of nearly 250 coaches working with customers living in our 44,000 homes to help them to thrive. This proved especially important when the coronavirus lockdown began, with our coaches directly speaking to more than 16,000 customers during those first four weeks to provide reassurance and assistance.

“I am immensely proud of the tremendous work carried out by our fantastic colleagues, who have brought our core purpose – to invest in homes and relationships so people can thrive – to life through their dedicated to our customer and communities during this time.”

Read our Annual Report and Financial Statements 2019 to 2020.