The Group affords its bankers and other lenders a strong level of asset and income cover and maintains good relationships with a range of funding sources from which it is able to secure finance on favourable terms.

Direct costs, including construction costs are outsourced on a fixed price contract basis, thereby passing on to the contractor all risk of development cost overspend including from increased material, labour or other costs.

Most other professional services are also outsourced, thus providing a known fixed cost before any project is taken forward, and avoiding the risk that can arise in employing inhouse professionals of a high unproductive overhead at times when activity is slack.

Land buying decisions are taken at Board level, after careful research by the Directors personally, who have substantial experience of the house building industry, potential construction issues, and the local market.

The Group focuses on a niche sector of new homes developments in the range of 4 to 20 units, within which range competition from land buyers is relatively weak, as this size is unattractive to major National and Regional house builders who require a larger scale to justify their administration and overheads, whilst being too many units for the jobbing builder to finance or undertake as a project. Many competitors who also focus on this niche have yet to recapitalise and are unable to raise finance.

Many of the activities are outsourced and each of the Directors is fully aware of the activities of all members.

The Group has a rigorous corporate governance policy appropriate for a publicly quoted company with ambitions substantially to raise its profile within the wider investor community.

Note: Items (4)–(5) reflect legacy smallsite residential practices kept for archive continuity. Trafalga’s current strategy is national, partnershipled asset repurposing (see Our Strategy).