Kevin Whitaker, CEO at Cala Group, said he expected that Cala would be one of the only major home builders to deliver home completions above pre-pandemic levels, with 2021 sales 19% up on 2019 to 2,904 homes.

This jump saw the house builder deliver a £130m pretax profit after plunging to £24m in 2020, and up from £96m reported in 2019,

The Legal & General Capital-owned builder said it was on focused on further strong expansion targeting £1.8bn revenue by 2026.

Whitaker said: “This year we plan to increase our housing delivery further still – building more than 3,200 homes across our eight regional operations.

“We have a strong short-term land bank to underpin the delivery of our current business plan and continue to invest heavily in land as we look towards our medium-term ambition of reaching a revenue of £1.8bn by 2026.”

He said: “Several factors have enabled our excellent financial performance across the 12-month period.

“In particular, we have seen many people making positive new home choices to seek out larger living spaces and this has driven very strong demand for our homes in aspirational suburban locations.

“While there have been significant supply chain challenges across the industry, the market has been strong. This, combined with improvements to our operational efficiency and the hard work of our team, has enabled us to deliver an excellent performance across the year.”