Prompted by an article in City AM, I did a quick summary (from here) of units sold, plots with planning consent and 'strategic land', i.e. plots where they are likely to get planning permission in the near future.
Total units sold over ten years = 25,124
Land bank in 2005 = 35,304 plots
Land bank in 2014 = 39,412 plots
So assuming typical annual sales of 2,500, they own enough land to keep them going for, er, sixteen years.
The Faux Libs and socialists both insist that if we liberalise planning restrictions i.e. grant these people more planning permission, they will increase output. The Faux Libs blame it on the government; the socialists blame it on the 'greedy developers'. Both sides blame it on the NIMBYs.
It strikes me that Bovis et al have a profit-maximising level of output and they will stick to it. If they get more planning permission for more, they will just park it to one side. Clearly they aren't too worried about planning permission lapsing again after three years, or else they wouldn't be holding onto 18,062 plots which already have planning.
Please also note:
The Group employed 928 staff directly at the end of 2014 and up to a further 3,000 sub-contractors work on its sites on a daily basis. In 2014, the Group legally completed 3,635 homes predominately on greenfield sites.
I didn't realize that building one house required only one man-year. I thought it was two or three. Either way, they have off-loaded all their risks onto their sub-contractors, if they want to curtail supply because of falling prices*, they just lay them off.
* 2007: 2,930 units sold; 2009: 1,803 units sold.
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