<p><span>Larkfleet Group’s sales and completions have “exceeded expectation” although material and labour shortages affected its performance.</span></p> <p><span>The business, which includes Larkfleet Homes and Allison Homes, said it delivered a robust trading performance for its year ending June 2021. Home completions rose </span><span>54%</span><span> on the previous year to 484.</span></p> <p><span>Gross profit margin during the financial year improved by 5.4 percentage points to </span><span>19.5%. </span><span>Larkfleet said this was driven by the completion of older, lower margin sites which were replaced by newer sites of higher margin.</span></p> <p><span>The company’s operating margin also recovered to 11.6% from </span><span>3% last year. </span><span>Larkfleet noted higher sales volumes and the fact that these had been severely affected last year by the market shutdown.</span></p><p></p> <p><span>But John Anderson, Larkfleet’s group ceo, said that in amongst the strong consumer demand, material and labour supply shortages “acted as a drag on performance”, causing significant cost inflation and build delays. Today (September 3) Berkeley also reported a </span><a href="https://www.house-builder.co.uk/news/berkeley-reports-challenging-operating-environment">challenging operating environment</a><span> with build cost inflation on materials and supply chain and labour issues.</span></p> <p><span>At the same time, as of August 2, Larkfleet’s housebuilding order book for the 2021/22 financial year stood at 295 units. This represented a forward sold position of more …