Price stability and increased visitor activity is encouraging Taylor Wimpey to speed up activity on its sites, according to chief executive Pete Redfern. But he said that the firm is not “actively or aggressively” looking to return volumes to the same level as before the downturn. “Things are surprisingly better than expected,” Redfern told Housebuilder. “And it’s been like that for the past nine or ten months. Our prices hit a low point at the end of November last year, then stayed stable until May but have been up 2% since then,” he says. As a result the firm is starting to pick up the pace of construction on site. Redfern says that although the firm did not mothball many of its sites last year as the downturn hit – perhaps ten of its 450 sites were closed – activity slowed to half normal level on those outlets. “Now we are up to about two thirds speed, and there is a very close match between construction rate and sales. It’s not quite build to order, but it’s a tight pipeline.” Redfern confirmed that Taylor Wimpey was buying land again, albeit with some caution, saying that there are good land deals …