<p>Taylor Wimpey has seen a “very challenging year”, with profit and completions down in 2020 against the previous year but with a strong second half. It has also announced £125 million to fund fire safety improvements to its apartments.</p> <p>Reporting on the year ending December 31 2020, the volume housebuilder said its results were “in line with market expectations”. Completions fell 39% to 9,609 homes against 2019, primarily due to the effects of the market shutdown of the second quarter. Meanwhile, private average selling prices rose 6% to £323,000.</p> <p>In response to the reduced completions, group revenue fell 35.7% to £2,790.2 million. Pre-tax profit dropped 68.4% to £264.4 million, with operating profit decreasing <span>64.7% </span>to £300.3 million.</p> <p><span>Taylor Wimpey’s net private reservation rate for the year was 0.76 homes per outlet per week against 2019’s 0.96. </span></p> <p>With the business seeing a “good recovery” in the second half of the year, allowing build capacity to return to near normal levels, it ended 2020 with a total order book valued at £2,684 million (December 31 2019: £2,176 million). This represents 10,685 homes against 2019’s 9,725.</p> <p>The Spring selling season had “started well”, it said, with its net private sales rate for …