Reporting on the six months ending June 2024, this is due to “strong progress” on land sales with 86% of budgeted sales completed, exchanged or in heads of terms.

In 2023, Harworth made disposals totalling £662.9m EPRA NDV and the group now forecasts it will overtake this in 2024 given activity in the first half of the year.

Harworth is increasing its focus on the industrial and logistics developments in its portfolio with consented projects increasing to 5.9m sq ft from 4.6m sq ft at the end of 2023.

In total, Harworth has an industrial and logistics land portfolio covering 32.9m sq ft.

Work on 600,000 sq ft of Grade A space is expected to start in the next 12 months, with 200,000 sq ft of work expected to complete in the same period.

The majority of this Grade A space, 84%, is likely to be retained by Harworth to generate rental income of £1.7m a year — this is part of the group’s wider aim of achieving a 100% Grade A investment portfolio by the end of 2027.

Elsewhere, Harworth highlights high-quality residential land sales as a “steady” source of funding.

•   Harworth secures £106.6m land sale to Microsoft
•   Harworth seals £20m land sale to Taylor Wimpey
•   Harworth appoints Midlands development director

Over the six months to June 2024, Harworth sold 357 plots of serviced land at Ironbridge, Simpson Park and Waverley for a total of £23.9m with a further 132 plots sold at Stopes Road for £8.5m.

Harworth continues to have 22,222 plots of residential strategic land.

Despite this activity, Harworth is in more debt than the end of 2023. As of 30 June 2024, Harworth is in net debt of £80.5m with this position £36.4m at the end of 2023.

Commenting on the figures, Lynda Shillaw, CEO at Harworth Group, took optimism from momentum in planning permission and sales.

“This has been another strong first half for planning approvals and land sales, the highlight being the exchange of contracts on a £107m serviced land sale to Microsoft at a significant premium to book value, our largest transaction to date,” said Lynda.

“We continue to see strong demand for Harworth’s serviced land and employment spaces, with the recent momentum in serviced land sales highlighting the strength of our markets and these sales provide a stable funding channel for our industrial & logistics development programme.”