<p>Persimmon says that trading over the summer weeks immediately following the EU Referendum was “encouraging”, with the number of customers visiting sites remaining well ahead of last year. Customer activity has strengthened as normal into the autumn and the private sales rate in the period since it last reported on August 23 is 19% ahead of last year.</p> <p>In a third quarter trading update the firm says it is now fully sold up for the current year and has around £757 million of forward sales reserved beyond 2016, an increase of 4% on the same point last year (2015: £726 million).</p> <p>Operating margin is expected to improve in the second half of the year from the 23.8% achieved in the first six months.</p> <p>Persimmon plans to open a new regional operating business near Nottingham on January 2 2017, bringing the total number of new businesses opened in the last two years to five.</p> <p>The firm also announced that it is to build its own brick factory.</p> <p>“Strong discipline over procurement and tight control of all development costs provide critical support to the trading performance of the business,” said the firm in its statement. ”We are pleased, therefore, to announce the …