From a personal point of view, it feels a bit strange kind of having not done this, you know, face-to-face for two years, having a smaller audience because of the tube strike, but also it's the last time I'll do it and put all those together and it feels like a special occasion. I'm not gonna sort of bore you with too much maudlin self kind of piece, but I will tell you one little story which happened only about three minutes ago, and it goes back to your comment, Faith. I thought you were gonna put a suit on for this. Which Faith didn't think I was gonna put a suit on for this, just to be clear.
So when I came in three or four minutes ago, to get mic'd up, the sort of gentleman from security on the door stopped me. He stopped me sort of, I think, mostly because I had a cup of coffee in my hand. He said... I take this as a badge of honor, just to be clear, guys at the back. I really do. He said, "Are you the AV guys at the back?" Genuinely, I am very proud to be considered to be one of the AV guys at the back, you know, sort of, and that he noticed. It won't surprise any of you that I wasn't wearing a tie.
I will chair the Q&A at the end, and I probably will kind of say a few little bits at the end, but I won't make a big meal of it, I promise. We do have a different structure of presentation today for reasons you'll understand. I'm gonna focus and try and be as disciplined as possible at focusing on our 2021 review, looking back at last year. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on it, and I am gonna pick up particularly fire safety, which I've been spending a lot of time on personally over the last sort of few weeks. I'm gonna leave a lot of the operational view, the outlook and the sort of forward-looking pieces for reasons you'll understand to Jennie, whose section will be longer than usual.
As I say, I'll come back and chair the Q&A and probably wrap up at the end. Getting into it. 2021, I think we view it as a very good year for the business. You know, sort of a return to normality in most of the metrics after the strangeness that was 2020. As ever, I'm not gonna read every word on any of these slides and just pick out the things that to me personally are important and that I want to make a point about. The statistic that I think I'll pick out most from this particular slide is that Construction Quality Review score. It's not something everybody in the industry talks about, but you'll recognize we've been talking about it consistently for a number of years. We do believe it's a really good measure of underlying quality of construction.
We all talk about the five-star review. You'll remember we've been one of the first to talk about customer service reviews. We do think whether you're looking at it from the perspective of cladding and fire safety, future regulation, consistency and quality, reputation, actually looking at both construction quality as well as customer service is critically important. That 4.67 won't mean a huge amount to you, but it is the best score in the industry and it has continued to progress year- on- year for the business, and it is incredibly important. The second number on that slide, and I'm only gonna pick out two. I'm gonna pick out is the short-term land bank plots. That represents, and particularly if you look at the owned plots in the land bank, a 9,000 increase in plots year- on- year.
That 9,000 plots is the bulk of the equity raise plots coming through, not just in approvals, which we've talked about, you know, sort of as we went through 2020 and 2021, but actually coming through into the balance sheet. Starting to come through in outlets and we'll all touch on outlets, I suspect, during the course of the presentation. That's our set up for the growth in the future. You know, as Chris will touch on, you can see that GBP 500,000 standing very clearly in our own land value. Just moving on. I'm gonna try and be disciplined and not talk too much about where we are today, but the housing market has been through 2021 and remains today in an incredibly strong place. Performance is good.
There are no cracks that we've seen either through the last week or so of the horror in Ukraine or through interest rate rises and signals in interest rate rises, and it remains consistently strong. You'll see our sales rates, you know, sort of have been stronger this year than the early part of last year. But also against that, we've seen very strong price growth as well, probably stronger in early 2021, sort of 2022, sorry, than we saw through 2021. The business is in a strong place. You also see, and I said we will touch on outlets. You see our outlet number just tick up a bit. Now, I do think it's important, and I'm certainly not gonna leave my colleagues with a set of unrealistic mountains to climb.
We are very clear the main growth in outlets will start to come in the second half of this year, and that, our messaging on that has not changed in the equity raise, and it's still the same today. We do believe you will see that growth. It will drive growth in completions in 2023 and beyond, but it's a second halfway to growth. Expect reasonably stable outlets in the first half. Just some broad views of operational progress and actually operational depth. I've already touched on the Construction Quality Review in the sort of top left box.
The thing I'm most proud of is that employee survey and the culture of the business and the strength that gives us, particularly in a world at the moment in 2022, where hanging on to employees, keeping people motivated, getting real depth of commitment to the business' strategy and to retention is key. You'll see, you know, all of those scores are above 90%. The one I'm personally most proud of is the health and safety one, and the sort of questions that underpin that sort of 97% is that's the number of people who believe the business is genuinely fully committed to health and safety.
The fact that you see that depth of commitment and understanding from our employees to diversity and inclusion, to their pride in the business, I think is unique in the sector and pretty uncommon across lots of other large businesses. We are very proud of that, and it makes a huge difference to what the business tends to do, you know, intends to do. If I look at the other three collectively. One thing you may remember back in 2018 when we set out a new strategy is as well as talking about land bank size and direction, we also talked about the importance to professionalize the business, to take what had historically been quite variable across our sector in individual businesses from individual brands and really make sure that in its attitude to quality, to service, to people, that it was a properly modern business.
I think as you see the trajectory over the last three or four years in all of those, sort of measures, it just underpins the quality of the business and its ability to deliver what it intends to do. I like to think, you know, sort of that is a really clear signal that I'm handing over a business that's in really good shape under the surface. Picking out a couple of things on specifics for 2021 and operational excellence, we finished the rollout of the CRM system that we talked about before, and you may remember Chris talking a little bit about some of the detailed benefits. It's now live. It's driving in, you know, sort of real value in information and efficiency.
I think what it enables us to do is really look differently at how we sell, at understanding our customers, at understanding the links, you know, sort of between our customers, sort of, and their decisions and how we plan our sites. I'll also pull out, and again, you know, sort of I'm going back a little bit in time, the restructuring that you may remember we did in late 2020. We took out about GBP 60 million of cost, but I said at the time that the key shift was actually more of a cultural one about taking out a layer of management that just sharpened operational focus.
We believe you can see in the 2021 results and in the strength of the business going forward that has really made a difference to the focus of the business on its operational performance, not just its strategic and sort of cultural objectives. I would also say, and Jennie's talked about this in the past, and will talk about it again, I'm sure, in the future, that we've also been hugely pleased with our progress on procurement, both our central procurement function, but also our engagement with the supply chain. As we've gone through the challenges of 2021 on sort of actually finding the right supply, managing costs, that's helped us hugely. It also sets us up with some real opportunity for further value added over the course of the next few years.
Now, I like to think on that, you know, sort of although ESG is a relatively new term, that the underlying things that drive ESG have been embedded in Taylor Wimpey for years. Actually, one of the things we struggle with most is to draw out all the things that are happening into the business and communicate them well 'cause a lot of them were happening naturally before ESG became a word or a phrase that people talked about. Just picking out a couple of things. We've already achieved a 35% reduction in emissions since 2013, larger than anybody else in the sector. We were also one of the first to set up science-based targets across our value chain and have those approved.
I think the key agenda for us as we look at our environmental and sustainability objectives over the course of the next 12 months is not setting a net zero target and focusing on the target. It's actually really working out what needs to be done to execute that. What are the challenges? What are the actual actions? There's a lot that's gone on in 2021 to give us the underpin of that. I expect we'll be talking to you about that a lot more during 2022 and coming up with a net zero target before long. It's the actions rather than exactly which year we think we get there that matters. I think on social and governance, the business has always been in a good place.
You know, sort of our diversity and inclusion performance and, you know, sort of the way that fits within the business is already strong. Just picking out a couple of things. We were pleased to close the case with the Competition and Markets Authority. I think from an investor point of view, clearly the fact that we closed it in line with the costs that we set out five years ago. We took early action five years ago on a really difficult issue, but it is really good to see that finally closed and, as I say, within that sort of cost provision. On governance, I think, you know, that culture around the people, governance comes naturally to the people in Taylor Wimpey, and I think it's something that is a real key strength of the business.
I said I would talk about fire safety, you know, as I say, this for me has been key focus of the last month or so with the government's changing focus. Before we talk about government's changing focus, I think it's really important to remember where Taylor Wimpey is. A year ago, we said we would pay for all Taylor Wimpey buildings for the last 20 years, including particularly the buildings between 11 and 18 meters, which was a pretty unique commitment at the time and where government is focused today, that we would take responsibility for that work, and we will pay for that work. We made a provision at that time, as you know, and ever since then, we've been working with building owners to try and resolve those issues.
Actually, when in January, government said that its loan scheme for 11- 18-meter buildings didn't really work and it wanted the industry to pay for them, the key change for us was already embedded. Our conversation with government around our own schemes has been actually very benign and relatively straightforward. We're already committed to doing that work. It's a difficult position for government. You all know that they've set out some pretty significant asks about the industry covering the costs of buildings that we haven't built ourselves. Our view very strongly is everybody in the industry, in line with the proposal the HBF made last week, should be committing to actually resolving issues on their own, on their own buildings.
To ask the industry to match the whole of the bill, for you know sort of orphan buildings and overseas investors is a huge step, and that's where the difficult negotiations inevitably will be. Can't really give you any meaningful update except to say you know, HBF covers less than half of these buildings. That less than half is a really good sample size. Through the work of the last six weeks, we've got a really good sense of how many buildings in, for HBF members are likely to be affected and a really good sense of the kind of costs. We do seriously question the quality of the GBP 4 billion estimate that the government made. We can't get to anywhere near the number of buildings that they think are affected.
That's not about disputing the amount of work that needs to be done. It's just about questioning the math on the, on the building numbers. The cost per building, I don't think is unreasonable. Number of buildings doesn't feel right. It's the one bit of information that's hopefully a little bit comforting that I can give you is that the data we look at does not get us to that scale of number. I think in terms of what the resolution, you know, sort of will be, it's really hard to say 'cause I think we're in the middle of that conversation at the moment. We stand by what we said, you know, sort of last year, and we stand by what we said in January in terms of Taylor Wimpey's own buildings, that actually the estimates that we've made are reasonable.
When we talk about a modest provision, to be very, very clear, what we're talking about is a small number of buildings that are above 18 meters, that we do not own the freehold of, that have always gone into the Building Safety Fund. In reaching an overall solution, we are comfortable to pick up that cost, but to do so unilaterally without an overall solution does not seem right, particularly when we are paying more than 10 x the cost of those buildings under the RPDT over the next 10 years. We are already funding that scheme. We will be happy to withdraw from that scheme as part of an overall solution, but are unlikely to do so, you know, sort of in isolation without a complete conclusion. When we talk about modest cost, we do mean modest.
You know, we haven't not put the number up 'cause we don't know what it is. We've not put the number up because it is a commercial negotiation in effect, and that actually having a number, we would dispute some of the buildings, for instance. Actually from an investment point of view, from a forward views of cash and dividend is not material enough to affect your judgment. You know, we're comfortable to talk about the sort of scale, but just don't think it's helpful to have a specific number up. We do believe that it's an industry issue. We do believe that Taylor Wimpey and one or two others are in a good place on what we've done on our own buildings. It's a difficult problem for government to solve.
Last of all, just looking back quickly at 2021, we delivered a strong uplift in completion volumes from the low base in 2020. Most importantly, we delivered the completion volumes we always told you we would in a world where not many did because we were pretty realistic about the constraints on the supply side from day one. We delivered a strong recovery in operating margin to what we would say is a normal level of operating margin, but the bottom end of what we see is a reasonable range. Jennie will talk, I'm sure, about where we see it going forward, but we're not changing our guidance. We saw coming through onto the balance sheet the land investment that we've been flagging for 18 months. You can really see that as a platform for growth.
We embedded the new environmental strategy. It's the one that's orange on the page, but anybody who could claim their environmental strategy delivers a green right now, I think is kidding you. We did, and I, you know, I won't steal Jennie's thunder, but we launched and piloted a new house type range, and that is a long process. We're coming to the end of that process and seeing it out on site. I touched on, I do think, you know, sort of something which is critically important and often underestimated, improved on what was already an industry leading quality review score. Jennie, over to you.
Thanks, Pete. Good morning, everyone. These are a great set of results, which mark a swift return to strong financial performance, similar in many respects to pre-COVID levels. The 54% increase in revenue was mainly driven by a 47% increase in group wholly owned completions, together with improved selling prices, and I'll come back to those. The gross profit margin increased to 24% as COVID related costs were minimal and the higher completion volumes improved fixed cost recovery. The operating margin performance is in line with the expectations that we set out in August, but an improvement on where we thought we'd get to this time last year. That improvement is because we've been successful in pushing hard on price.
We delivered volumes towards the top end of our guidance range, and we've tightened our commercial discipline to manage our costs more effectively. I'm really delighted with that margin outcome and the platform that it provides for further progress in 2022 and beyond. The growth in tangible net asset value per share at 7.4% is after reflecting the GBP 125 million exceptional cladding provision we announced this time last year. Return on net operating assets at just shy of 25% is exactly where we would expect it to be at this stage of our growth journey. On this slide, you can see the split between private and affordable completions, with affordable contributing 17.6% of U.K. volumes in 2021. Looking forward, we expect affordable to increase to around 20% of 2022 completions.
Private average selling prices increased by 2.8% year-on-year, which reflects underlying price inflation of about 4%, which you'll see on the next slide, offset slightly by a higher mix of completions from Scotland and the North. Joint ventures contributed a share of profit of GBP 5.4 million in the year, and that is expected to increase to around GBP 10 million in 2022. This slide provides an illustration of the factors contributing to the movement in U.K. operating margin from one year to the next. You'll recall that inflation on selling prices and build costs were both 3% when we presented the slide at the half year. Both have increased to around 4% for the full year, indicating they were running closer to 5% in the second half.
Build cost inflation has continued to rise in 2022 and is currently running at around 6%, but that continues to be fully offset by price inflation. Overall, the net market impact has, including landbank evolution, which I'll come back to actually on the next slide, was an increase of 1.1 percentage points. The sources of the biggest improvements in margin in 2021 are the same as we reported at the half year, and you can see them in the two boxes that are on the slide. The first box includes the benefit in the period from the absence of COVID related costs, but also the benefit of the restructuring actions we took in 2020, which generate a saving in 2021.
The second box shows the impact from the return to more normal levels of fixed cost recovery as volumes have increased. As we look forward, you know, we continue to expect margin to improve in 2022 and beyond, which you can see on the next slide. Now, what you should see at a glance from this slide is that we remain very confident of the business's ability to achieve higher operating margins of 21%-22% in the medium term, assuming a stable market. I'm very much aware that the right-hand side of the slide takes you to a range of 21.2%-22.6% and not 21%-22%.
In the real world, the range is a bit wider than we've presented here, but the slide should continue to give you a good sense of what we see as the main drivers of margin going forward. The start point for the bridge has been updated to reflect the current year performance. As a consequence, both the restructuring efficiencies and the price optimization that you've seen on previous versions of this slide are now fully captured in that starting point. The efficiency benefit associated with higher volumes has grown to become the largest component of the bridge, reflecting the fact that 2021 volumes remain 10% lower than 2019's. The increase in our short-term land bank to 85,000 plots at the end of 2021 is the first stage in delivering that volume growth.
The next stage is converting that land bank to outlets, and Jennie will update you on the good progress that we're making in that respect. We remain on track for material volume growth in 2023. Land bank evolution is the impact from trading out of older sites with cumulative inflation and regulation and replacing them with new land where the margin on acquisition has shown improvement over the last five or so years since the Brexit referendum. Given the changes to Part L and Part F effective from the middle of this year and the subsequent introduction of Future Homes Standard, we've been quite cautious on this. As you'd expect, you know, the teams will work hard to drive efficiencies as we work our way through those transitions.
Lastly, the operational improvements include the benefits of our CRM system, which as Pete said, was rolled out during 2021 and is now operational throughout the business. Plus the impact of our new house type range, which will deliver improved plotting efficiency, lower build cost, and be easier to build. You know, we built prototypes in 2021. We're now plotting the new range on new sites, and we've adapted them to comply with the changes to building regs. We should expect to see that flow through fairly quickly into completions over the next couple of years. A couple of things to pull out on the balance sheet.
Land, as Pete has already said, has increased by GBP 510 million over the course of the last year, driven by a 9,000 unit increase in the short term owned land bank as a consequence of the equity raise in 2020. Land cost represents 14.6% of the average selling price in that owned land bank, which really does demonstrate the quality of our land position. Work in progress reduced year-on-year as predicted. Last year was elevated because of the overhang of completions from the end of 2020 into Q1 2021 as a result of the site closures in Q2 2020. You know, that overhang generated a record half one performance in 2021 and a weighting of completions to the first half.
Given the reduction in WIP coming into this year, we expect to return to a more normal weighting of completions in 2022, with approximately 45% in the first half. Land creditors have increased by GBP 130 million to GBP 806 million, consistent with the increased land investment, and 39% of that balance falls due for payment in 2022. Provisions, as noted earlier, have increased due to the GBP 125 million cladding provision booked in the first half of the year. Despite the significant investment in land, you know, we've continued to generate very strong cash inflows with GBP 575 million generated from operations to fund tax and exceptionals, with the remainder available for distribution to shareholders over time.
2022 will see investment more balanced between land and WIP as we increase the number of outlets. When we get to 2023, you know, we'll start to see even greater cash generation from operations as the volumes increase. The most significant non-operational outflows in 2021 were for tax and dividends, and we're expecting an effective tax rate in 2022 of 22%, which incorporates the 4% Residential Property Developer Tax kicking in from April. The combined effective rate will increase further to 27.5% in 2023 and 29% in 2024 following the increase in the corporation tax rate from 19%- 25% in April 2023.
Now, this time last year, we resumed our ordinary dividend policy of paying out to shareholders approximately 7.5% of net assets each year in two equal installments in May and November. Consistent with that policy, today we're declaring a final dividend for 2021 of GBP 162 million or 4.44 pence per share to be paid in May, subject to shareholder approval. That brings me on to excess capital returns. I thought, with this slide it would just be useful to set out how we think about excess capital returns. As a highly cash generative business, you know, we can deliver attractive returns to investors.
Our approach to returning excess capital reflects the fact that we operate in a cyclical industry, which means that we want to maintain a strong balance sheet with low adjusted gearing. At the same time, we want to ensure we're investing in the land and WIP to drive our growth. Where we have excess cash after funding that growth and paying the ordinary dividend, we will return it to shareholders. Now, turning to what that means for the current year, as we look forward, we have further payments on land contracts agreed over the last 18 months and investment in WIP to support outlet openings and to drive growth in 2023 and beyond. Despite these investments, we've conservatively assessed our excess capital and have this morning announced a GBP 150 million excess return to shareholders.
We were specific in our January statement that it was the board's intention to return this cash by way of a share buyback, reflecting both investors' feedback and the board's view of the current share price. We've confirmed that intention with the buyback obviously commencing today. Finally, moving on to the guidance slide. You know, we've indicated for some time now our expectations of a modest volume growth in 2022, so a low single-digit percentage increase. Within that, we are expecting a more normal half one, half two weighting, as I said, with around 45% of completions in the first half, and the mix of affordable homes is expected to be approximately 20%. With regard to margin, we are conscious of the interest rate trajectory and build cost inflation, which is running at the highest level we've seen since 2014.
However, margin and quality of earnings remains our focus over volume, and we are therefore confident of delivering a further increase in group operating margin in 2022 towards our medium-term operating margin target ahead of both 2021 and 2019 and in line with our previous expectations. Year-end net cash is difficult to sort of forecast with accuracy this far out due to the variability in the timing of land spend, but our current expectation is for GBP 600 million. So all in all, I think a very bright future for the business. You know, we've done what we said we were going to do in 2021, and we're well set to continue to deliver on our promises in 2022. It gives me great pleasure to hand over now to our CEO designate, Jennie?
Not Pete.
Morning, everyone. I was going to say I'd take you for a canter through the operational overview and outlook. Giving time, I think that we'll kick that up to a gallop. Straight into a look at the housing market then. While we expect further increases in the base rate through 2020, we continue to see good mortgage availability at higher LTVs across a range of lenders and overall affordability remaining good. New homes are already more energy efficient than many older homes, and the further energy savings from meeting future home standards will, I believe, make our homes increasingly attractive to our customers with lower running costs and a greatly reduced environmental footprint.
The unwind of Help to Buy in March 2023 is being well managed with usage falling in 21%-24% of private reservations and dropping to 20% in the second half. With this and other actions, such as Deposit Unlock, a circa 3% reduction in our average size of home, and a gradual movement of mix, reducing four or five bed towards a smaller home mix, we are well prepared for the final stages of the Help to Buy unwind. On land, the market is increasingly competitive. However, good opportunities do remain and our teams are replacing land on a selective basis across all of our divisions.
While there are undoubtedly delays in the planning system and there is the potential for further increased regulatory burdens, such as design uplifts and biodiversity net gain, our teams are aware of these and factoring them into land buying assumptions and expectations for outlet opening. From a political perspective, there's a lot going on and I'm not going to attempt to cover it, you'll be pleased to hear, this morning, nor will I repeat what Pete's already said on cladding and building safety. I would flag the Levelling Up White Paper released in February because it includes housing as one of its key missions and included welcome housing related commitments such as helping renters secure a path to ownership by 2020 and increasing the number of first-time buyers in all areas of the UK.
The paper also included a commitment to 300,000 new homes per year and continues some of the themes that were included in the Planning White Paper. We'll expect to hear more in the spring, potentially a planning or a Levelling Up Bill. Looking at forward indicators, the last few weeks of 2022, we see strong website activity across key measures, very consistent when compared with previous years. Website visits are roughly flat with that, what was a strong 2021, but up 5% on 2020 and 20% against 2019.
In particular, we haven't seen any noticeable changes in website visits or following the interest rate rise, with activity remaining in line with seasonal trends. Appointment bookings too remain consistent with 2021, which was also a very strong year. We're currently over 60% forward sold for private completions in 2022, and continue to grow our order book into the second half of the year. As at the 27th of February, our total order book excluding joint ventures stood at GBP 2.9 billion, just under 11,000 homes. The data reflects an underlying strength of demand for our homes, underpinned by low interest rates and good mortgage lending. Now on to sort of land bank.
During the early stages of the pandemic, we took the strategic decision to increase investment in land on an opportunistic basis. Over the 18 months to the 31 December, we strengthened our land bank, adding circa 29,000 new plots, including converting 9,000 units from our strategic land pipeline. Overall investing GBP 1.4 billion. The land acquisition intake margins underpin our 21%-22% operating margin target and provides us with a greater number of options amongst or amidst a competitive land environment and a sticky planning environment. These sites are distributed across all divisions and have a healthy balance of large and small sites within it. All of that means that we are able to operate selectively in today's market.
During the year, we acquired 14,450 plots, increasing the short-term land bank by 8,000 plots to 85,000. The average selling price in the short-term land bank increased by 4.9% to GBP 302,000. Although Chris has already mentioned this number, I thought it is worth repeating, the average cost of land within the short term owned land bank remains low at 14.6%. Throughout 2020 and 2021, our teams worked incredibly hard at the front end. Identifying, securing, and processing a significant level of new land acquisitions to get us into what is a very strong position. Notwithstanding some challenges, in planning terms, our delivery for 2022 and 2023 is very healthy. With outline or detailed planning on 100% of 2022 expected completions and 97% of 2023 expected completions.
The pace is unrelenting, however, and the hard work is ongoing. Our management and operational teams are clear on the actions required to ensure we deliver and maintain the momentum for growth, positioning our business to deliver increased volume growth in the medium term. Moving from completions to sort of outlets now. I think this slide demonstrates again the high level of certainty we have in our outlet delivery for 2022 and the first half of 2023, which will be delivered or deliver increased completions in 2023 and 2024. We remain very focused on progressing new acquisitions through the planning and technical stages and opening quality outlets.
As at the end of February, we own or control with planning or resolution to grant 88% of the sites where we intend to open an outlet in 2022, of which we have already started on site at nearly a third. Though, as Chris has mentioned, the weighting of opening will be later in the year. Where planning delays have been experienced, then these have been factored in to these forecasts. We are pleased, of course, with the sites we secured following the equity raise, which underpin our medium term margin targets. The decision to go early and take advantage of the market in the absence of others was one which I believe was a good one, and particularly given the current tightening in the market.
There was lots of additional activity during that period, and I have a couple to share with you, though I've removed the locations to, you know, save the blushes of others. This particular site was one of the very first we bought. It was initially marketed at the end of 2019, and at that time, two house builders bidding jointly were selected preferred bidders. The local team continued to monitor and re-engage with the landowner in April 2020, when little progress had been made. Our early discussions were positive, but significantly strengthened by the equity raise, which gave the landowner the confidence that we would perform. At the time, I don't think that there was anyone in the market that would have been willing or indeed able to commit to this particular purchase.
In July 2020, we agreed terms on what I would call a pleasingly good level below the original bid. The teams have made very swift progress since. The site's work commenced in July, the outlet opened in December, and the first legal completions are on track for delivery in April 2022. This is another early example, a small greenfield site on the edge of a village. A lot size and location which our local team would find highly competitive in normal circumstances. The site was under offer again to another party in a deal agreed pre COVID lockdown. Once again, poor performance due to funding nervousness, our local team were able to step in with an alternative keener offer, and short contract timescales.
The deal was done in under two months, and having built a good relationship with the vendor, we have since done another deal on adjacent land. This site offers a good standard house type mix, a desirable location, an affordable mid-market price point, and the small site provided the opportunity for the local business to increase their outlet position. The site will start in summer 2022, with the outlet programmed for Q1 2023. Now I just want to run through about four slides. They're going to take quite a high level overview and go at some pace. I'm not going to cover the detail today, but I will come back to these in the future. Of course, I'm happy to take any questions that you might have.
Strategic land and our strategic land pipeline is a key strength in our land position, and I think it's never been more important to have control of land, particularly when carried lightly, given the current sluggish planning environment. Strategic land gives us an all-important additional input to the short-term land bank and improved margins and provides greater control over the quality of the planning permissions we receive. This is further enhanced by good visibility and prioritization of the near-term pipeline conversions. In the year, 50% of our completions were sourced from the strategic pipeline. We converted approximately 7,700 plots to the short-term land bank, and we added 6,000 net potential new plots. I think we're in a great position.
At 145,000 plots, we have the strongest strategic pipeline in the sector, with the vast majority either freehold or under option. The majority of our options have a discount opportunity ranging between 10%-20%, the overall average discount opportunity being in the region of 13%. Pete mentioned that I would come to the new house type range, and I promise not to take too long. In the year, 89% of our house completions were from the standard house type range. I think the business is therefore very well primed to adopt and achieve the benefits of the new range. The range has been designed to be high quality, energy efficient, cost effective, and safe to build. Its core design principles support greater standardization, simplification, and plotting efficiency benefits.
We expect to realize consistent savings in build cost. It has also been designed to accommodate future home standards and to deliver adaptable elevations and attractive street scenes while maintaining these benefits. Customer engagement throughout the process has ensured a range which is customer facing and desirable. Feedback from visitors to our prototype site have been very positive. When we think of optimizing our land asset, we're looking at achieving the optimal balance in square foot coverage, build cost, revenue, and sales rate. The optimum mix will cover and coverage will change from site to site, market to market, and is also impacted by external factors such as planning and site constraints.
Those businesses that have been plotting the new range are seeing plotting efficiency improvements by around 200-400 sq ft an acre on sites, new sites and replans gained through ease of plotting because of simplified foot plates, repetitive plot depths, and efficiency accommodating in plot parking. Coverage isn't everything, and therefore having the cost effective build, being able to deliver that kerb appeal to stimulate revenue and rate are also important features of a house type range and getting the best out of our land asset. I think the new range has all of these attributes, including attractive product mix at competitive price points. Again, Pete gave an early mention to supply chain. During 2021, the sector faced supply constraints and experienced general shortage of haulage.
We managed these pressures, I believe, effectively, benefiting from our scale and our strong partner relationships. We were also able to draw on our unique logistics operation in supporting our sites during times of material constraint. Taylor Wimpey Logistics, I think, is a key differentiator in the sector for Taylor Wimpey, enabling us to improve site efficiency and cost effectiveness. In 2021, we relocated the logistics business to a more modern facility with room to grow in Peterborough. At its simplest, our logistics business procures, receives, consolidates, and dispatches supplies to our sites, and in doing so, provides a number of wider benefits, certainty by holding stock of high level standard components, particularly those with suppliers with poor track records and supports our sites during supply fluctuations.
Efficiency through enhanced relationships with suppliers, on bulk purchase pricing, acting as a single point of delivery, ensuring increased supplier performance and reduced costs. Of course, they provide an alternative consolidated transport route for deliveries to sites, reducing our reliance on supplier deliveries and supporting efficiency with the preparation of build packs delivered to site just in time for each stage of the build process. Looking forward, the industry will face a number of planned changes this year with the introduction of the New Homes Ombudsman and important changes to the building regulations. While there are obvious challenges, we believe that these changes offer opportunity to further strengthen our customer proposition through increased energy efficiency combined with improved build quality, attractive modern homes, and a positive customer journey, all of which will drive value.
Part L, F, and O will now be very familiar to you and all come into force in June of this year, allowing a one-year transitional period for existing sites until June 2023. Although timings are slightly different in Scotland and Wales. To prepare, we conducted a range of research and trials to update the technical specifications for our homes, and we also undertook a range of work streams to support the operational businesses in easing the further adoption of timber frame. Further changes are then anticipated in the Future Homes Standard in 2025, and we are undertaking trials of alternative technologies such as air source heat pumps in anticipation. We are, of course, supportive of the introduction of an independent ombudsman, and in recent weeks we have signed up to the new code.
We are well-placed, I believe, for these changes and with actions and processes already well aligned with those expected by the new ombudsman. We've been preparing for these changes for some time, and this has also been reflected in our recent land buying activity and, as I said, in our internal processes. I know I have raced through those areas, but we will come back to them, sort of in the coming months and year. We're in a strong position, and an important focus for the management team will be to maintain and build on business momentum. Our timely land acquisition has set the business up for high quality, outlet-led volume growth at a time when the market has become increasingly competitive.
Our primary performance focus remains increasing operating margin, and we continue to target a number of areas to achieve this. We'll stay focused on cost, operational execution, process simplification and standardization, all core drivers of value for our business. Our management teams will be driving performance and are focused on optimizing sales pricing. Active management of supply chain through our logistics and central procurement teams offers the potential for further time and cost savings. We will build on the things we are good at, such as build quality, customer service and employee experience, and we'll work on other areas such as sustainability, targeting the areas where we believe we can make the most difference to future-proof our business.
I'll come back to you in the early summer with more detail on the future of the business in the medium term. Now finally from me on outlook. Despite recent rises in the base rate, interest rates remain low, and there is good availability of affordable mortgages. While further rises in base rate are anticipated, we expect affordability to remain robust and the monthly cost of servicing a mortgage to remain attractive compared to the monthly cost of rental. Assuming the market remains broadly stable, we continue to expect to deliver low single-digit growth in completions in 2022 and to continue to make progress towards our operating margin target. It is still relatively early in the year, and we do continue to see cost pressures across some key materials alongside wage inflation.
However, we anticipate current build cost inflation of circa 6% in 2022, but expect sales price growth to continue to offset current build cost inflation. The additional land we have secured has positioned the group to deliver high quality, profitable and sustainable growth. We believe these additional land investments differentiate our business and will result in increased outlet openings in late 2022 and material volume growth from 2023, generating additional value and compelling investor returns. With a continued focus on execution and efficiency, we are well-placed for strong progress and to deliver enhanced shareholder value in the years ahead. Thank you and now back to you, Pete.
Thanks, Jennie. Now, I did have a pen. I knew I had one somewhere 'cause I know there will be several multi-part questions. My chance of remembering them all is pretty slim without a pen. So I'm gonna chair the Q&A, but we'll divide them up amongst the team, sort of so you get a broad sense from all of us, including, of course, from Jennie. Over to you. Aynsley, do you wanna kick off?
Thanks. It's Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just two questions. Firstly, on pricing, so you kind of highlighted a 4% market price increase last year. That's lower than what I've heard from some peers and obviously compared to some of the indices, you know, Nationwide, Halifax. Could you just explain that difference? Is it mix? Just a bit more color there. Then for this year, what your expectation is for HPI? Are you pushing pricing up as we kind of enter into the spring selling season? Maybe quantify that. Then just a quick easy one, second one on GBP 600 million net cash expected at the end of the year. Presumably, that's after the GBP 150 million share buyback.
Okay. I'll definitely push the sort of second part of the pricing question on this year's pricing and the cash question to Chris. Just quickly dealing with the first one, I think we're comparing apples and oranges, because the 4% you picked up is the full year impact in completions of pricing, not our view of point-to-point pricing, if you see what I mean. When you look at what others have said, they're always talking about point-to-point pricing. I don't think anybody else, because the price increases came partway through the year, didn't they, with a long order book. I think our views around, you know, sort of what actual price movements have been from 12 months ago to today are not particularly different to the rest of the sector.
It's just how it comes through that reconciliation. Chris, sort of, yeah, this year's pricing where we are now and then the cash question.
Yeah, of course. I mean, Pete's absolutely right in terms of that 4%. You know, it's a historic completion number. On a spot-to-spot basis, and if you sort of looked at, I suppose mid to late last year to date, we're probably seeing house price inflation of about 4% over that rough sort of six month period.
In the second question, I think, which was, is the 600 after the 150? Yes, it is.
As you go into spring selling season, you're pushing prices up now, presumably they're sticking quite well?
Yes. You know, you probably heard this fairly consistently from us over the last couple of years. We've been working very hard to optimize price, and that has been consistent through, you know, pretty much all of 2020 and 2021. You know, the market, and you can see this from the sales rate, in the year to date, the market has been pretty strong. We've taken that opportunity to, you know, to probably push price a bit higher, harder, at the start of this year than we have in the last couple of years.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's one of the strongest periods we've seen and probably the big standout, you know, sort of positive surprise of early 2022. Will, do you wanna...
Thanks. Will Jones from Redburn. Three please, if I could. First, just coming back to the new house type range, are there any additional numbers you can give us around how far it could penetrate, at what rate? Are there any build cost or margin extras, if you like, associated with that or benefits? Second is just around fire safety. We've all seen the HBF proposal, which looks, I think, pretty fair to more than fair to most observers, but it seems the government wants more. What's your sense of what more they want, please? The last one, just around thinking about the business as we go into 2023 and that large step-up in volume growth that's being guided and expected.
Clearly, outlets are wanting big input to that, but what are you doing more generally around preparing the business on processes, supplies, people? Obviously, execution of that we know in this sector can be hard at that rate. Any further thoughts around that? Thank you.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, the house type range and the future volume growth are definitely for Jennie. I'll pick up the fire safety one first. I mean, we entirely agree with you that the HBF offer is a very reasonable one. I think I'd say two things about how that compares to what the government wants and what I think is realistic. You know, as I said earlier on, we cannot give you a prediction of the end result. We're still very much in the thick of it. But I think two bits of information which I think are useful.
First of all, I don't necessarily think and let's be honest, with the war going on in Ukraine, the coverage on it over the last week or so has been much more muted than it was before. Actually, people haven't fully explored and really tried to understand what that offer is yet in the press. I think there's a slight misunderstanding or something that is missed in that that's quite important, which is just the simple logic, you know, and particularly when you're talking about this key gap, which is 11-18 meters, you know, which were pre-funded by the government loan scheme.
If HBF members are just short of half of the problem in terms of their historical buildings, and HBF members sign up to do the work, you know, so it's then to manage and pay for the work on their own buildings, then by definition, they're covering roughly half of that gap, if you see what I mean. I'll come on to the second bit, which is we will question the GBP 4 billion number that Government has come up with. Even if it was right, the logic of the offer is it takes half of the universe of problems out of Government's remit, and therefore, I think it is a more substantive offer than necessarily has been perceived, if you think about it that way.
On the GBP 4 billion number, I think it, you know, will give you some comfort. There really is a big, you know, sort of gap there between our bottom-up calculation with quite a large information set based on HBF buildings. There's been quite open conversation over the last six weeks around the industry about real examples and building numbers and, you know, sort of, we have a much better understanding than we have ever done before. We just can't get anywhere near the number of buildings government has used to calculate GBP 4 billion. You know, in a sense, there is a even in providing what government actually want, a proper understanding of that offer and then a proper understanding of what the actual universe of problems is, you know, I think gets you to a lower gap anyway.
If the industry does take the step of removing buildings from the Building Safety Fund, obviously, that Building Safety Fund, as I touched on earlier, is substantially funded by the industry. But anything that we take out and pay for effectively is a contribution that government then have towards that gap. You add in the obvious bit, which I won't elaborate on the behaviors of cladding manufacturers and lots of other participants in the market like contractors and others. You know, sort of our argument will be the gap for government actually is quite small. But winning that argument isn't gonna be easy. That will be where the debate, you know, should be and hopefully will be over the course of the next few weeks. Yeah, Jennie, house type range and volume and process and development.
Yeah. I mean, starting off with the new house type range. As I said, we're plotting it now. Actually the first non-prototype sale will be in August this year. We're making good progress. The timeline that was on the slide says majority of completions would be from the new house type range by the second half of 2024. I think that we will get some help, Will, from the Part L and F where the teams feel that they have sufficient sort of planning relationship to replot, and we would expect to see the businesses replot. There's some additional incentive with that building reg change built in there.
We might see some early uplift than we would normally expect through that. To the sort of margin point, you know, we do think that there are benefits that will drop to margin in the new house type range, and it was in sort of Chris's bridge on margin there. We'll be driving that as best we can. Then your sort of question on volume growth for 2023. As you heard, you know, we believe that there'll be material sort of volume growth in 2023.
I think the business is in a really good position to deliver that volume, certainly in terms of, you know, overall sort of structure and sort of infrastructure of the business. The supply chain are already in advanced discussions with our suppliers around our aspirations and intent to uplift volume so that we can ensure that they're making their plans around ours. As regards people, I mean, skills and resources are something that's, you know, very much on our minds. It's something that we're looking at constantly and, you know, looking at continuing to step up what is already a quite a heavy level of commitment within the business on skills and resources to ensure that we've got the site teams to deliver that volume.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Morning, everyone. Chris Millington at Numis. Can I just ask the first question about the post-COVID land you've bought? It's roughly about 30% of the short-term land bank, and as Jennie laid out, you've clearly got some good deals within there. Perhaps, I don't know, maybe you could give us a comment about how much better margins are on that vintage than what you're able to pay for today. The second part to that question really is I presume that's quite a big support between the 21%-22% margin target. Obviously land being bought today is being bought in a more competitive environment. I mean, do we have a situation where margins shoot up to that level and then have to drift back down because you're not able to buy land quite so well?
Sorry, quite a long-winded question, but I think you've probably got the drift of it. Second one is, we heard one of your competitors talk about potential RPDT to cover this government liability on cladding. Do you think the land market is amenable to take some of that hit given it's so competitive at the moment, or will that hit land on you? Then the last one's quite a straightforward one, is Q4 weighting of completions. You know, obviously that was a bit of an issue back in 2019. We're now reverting to a more normal mix. Can you just give us a comment on that as well?
I'll obviously take the cladding one and touch on the land as well and then, you know, sort of pass the Q4 weighting on to Chris. That also gives Jennie a chance to touch on the land as well. On the RPDT one first. I mean, I heard what Dean had said and just to be clear, you know, Dean and I have talked about where we are. I think yeah, actually in many ways we're quite aligned as where we stand at the moment, what we've already done as businesses. You know, a lot of, you know, I think we share a lot of common views. I felt he was stronger than I would've been on yesterday on that.
You know, I think it's a possibility, but I don't think it's definitive. It is, as I said earlier, really quite tough to call. I don't think he's wrong, I just think it's not certain. I think the question's fair, you know, sort of given where the land environment is, the regulatory burden on land that effectively we're already talking about in terms of, you know, and we are passing, you know, a lot of those Part L and F costs now back as an industry into land values. You know, sort of sometimes government has this perception that that's, you know, sort of a never ending pot of gold, and it is not.
You know, sort of I do think, and it comes back slightly to your question about, you know, sort of land margins going forward, that I don't feel comfortable just to think it's okay 'cause it's, you know, sort of a RPDT, if you see what I mean. I think there is a cost there and, you know, we should be able to pass much of it on through land, but not necessarily all of it. Of course, as you all know, we've seen environments where, you know, sort of if land prices get compressed, land supply shrinks. It's not just about the economics of each individual piece of land, it's also about land availability. You know, it's the one thing that I felt was a bit too strong.
I agree with, you know, many of the other sort of comments that he made. I think on land we bought, you know, sort of, we've said several times and we talked, you know, as we've gone through stages of land approvals, the land that we bought, you know, post equity raise was at higher margins than we were buying, sort of immediately pre the COVID crisis. It was definitely at lower land costs 'cause we started to build in the Part L and F costs then, and that was the first time we were able to do that, and I think that then led the industry. We saw real savings there.
I think, you know, we've also been clear that the housing market, which we were more positive on than others at that point in time, also recovered, you know, sort of more strongly, and therefore that window was quite tight. I think for us to go back and sort of split each period into, "Well, in this period, it was this much higher, in that period," is really quite difficult. The truth is the sites we will complete houses on in 2023 will have a slug from the immediate post-equity raise period, a slug from, you know, sort of a period as land competitiveness starts growing and some sites that go back 10 years.
I think it is one of the components, and there is no doubt that the timing of those land purchases post equity raise, you know, supports our view and, you know, gives us a positive benefit against that 21%-22% target. It would be wrong to think that it's the only reason that we think we'll get there. There are so many moving parts. It's one of the components, and it will blend in, and I don't think we'll quote it as a separate number. That land, though, is materially cheaper than you can buy land today. You know, and that's a combination of the competitive, you know, sort of advantage we had at the time and where house prices have gone since then. I think that also answers your question about risk.
You know, sort of we are blending sites from a long period of time. We always have. We're blending strategic sites with short-term sites, if you see what I mean. It's a contributory factor, you know, sort of, but it's not the only underpin of that 21-22 Q4 weighting. Sorry, Jennie, I should, you know, sort of apologies for taking the land question. I should give you the chance to comment on it as well.
Yeah, absolutely. You crack on. I mean, I think there's probably-
You don't have to put over there for much longer.
Yeah. I mean, the only thing that I'd add is, you know, the point that I made in the presentation, Chris, which, you know, the level of activity that we have had sort of over those 18 months does give us choices now, you know, given that the market is tightening. We're in a good position.
Just on the weighting, Chris. I've not the number in front of me, but I think in 2019 our H1 H2 weighting was something like 41-59, and we're not guiding to that. You know, what we're saying is 45-55. I think if we look back sort of over a longer period, you'd see a pretty consistent, you know, number around about that sort of, that sort of level. Yeah, not quite 2019 sort of levels.
Yeah. Oh, sorry.
Morning. Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. I've got three also. The first one is on slide 16 on the margin bridge. The land bank component of that is obviously a big part of the difference between the base case and the upside case, I guess, of the margin. What should we be looking for rather in the delta in those land scenarios that would mean you come at the low end or the top end of that margin range? The second one is going back to broader ESG and environmental questions. Are you seeing an uptick in customers' willingness to pay up for energy efficient homes given the energy backdrop?
Lastly, we've covered a number of times your view on the number of buildings that might be covered being different to governments. Are you willing to put a number on that?
Okay. I am gonna take that last question, but I will leave it to the end. I mean, Chris, you'll pick up the margin bridge question. Jennie, do you wanna pick up the ESG question on customers' willingness to pay?
Yeah. I mean, let me go on that first. We're not seeing a significant move on sort of customers' willingness to pay. We are seeing it starting to increase in the sort of the priority of the secondary considerations. It's certainly, you know, something that they're now asking about. They're interested in the literature that we're including within our sites. I think that, you know, looking at sort of mortgage rate availability, there are green mortgages now that are available, which Taylor Wimpey qualifies for, which would see, you know, a meaningful saving for customers.
I think, with energy costs where they are, that we are likely to see that becoming an ever increasing sort of area of focus for customers.
Yeah. On the land bank evolution, I mean, you're quite right. I think you know, I was clear when I presented that you know, we've been reasonably cautious with that slide. I reference you know, Part L, F, O, and Future Homes Standard. So that's where the variability comes in in different scenarios and different outcomes in that regard.
On the number of buildings, I'm gonna give you a fairly clear steer on the number, and then I'm gonna caveat it so much that you can't actually use it to put it in a spreadsheet. The caveats are genuine. We get to a number you know, based on, as I say, a big sample size, which is less than half in terms of the number of buildings.
We actually get to a in fact materially less than half. We get to a cost that's slightly higher because, as I say, it's not about forming a fundamentally different view on the amount of work. It's about, you know, actually trying to understand what the universe is. Why is the gap so big? This is where the caveats come in. A lot of the, you know, you know that government has sort of tried to push the timescale back to 30 years. We've said in January, and, you know, the only reason we haven't touched on it today is 'cause nothing has changed. Yeah, we're not seeing a problem for us in that 20- to 30-year period.
I think, you know, sort of what Chris has said, and I think it's very much still true today. We have not had a single incoming call from a building, on a building built by Taylor Wimpey in the 1990s, not one from a customer. This as an issue has been going on. If there were buildings out there with real concerns in that, we would have heard. You know, our reticence about pushing it back 30 years is about scope creep. If you think about it, and I think, you know, to me, this is one thing that government hasn't managed particularly well in the 4.5 years since Grenfell.
If you don't try and understand what you think the scale of the issue is, then you let that and then you end up with mortgage companies, insurance companies questioning buildings in the nineties that don't have any of the same characteristics of the Grenfell building or any of the things we've learned from that. That then creates an issue in its own right. That's why it's not because we can see a big cost there for us between 20 and 30 years, it's because it actually opens up a whole series of questions that actually we see no evidence that they need to be opened up. You know, so because government is looking at a longer time frame, you know, they come up with a bigger number.
Actually we would question whether any of the, you know, or meaningful number of the buildings in that extended time frame actually have the same characteristics that they need anything like the same amount of work. The other area where government's estimates differ from our own, and this is why it's hard to reconcile, is the examples we've seen that, yeah, they've shown in the nineties or even, you know, some of the more difficult challenging ones in the 2000s are refurbishments. They're often refurbishments of affordable housing, yeah, performed by government. They are, you know, they bear more characteristics of Grenfell, but they don't look anything like what Taylor Wimpey does or Persimmon does or Barratt does or anybody else. You know, that's a quite a different problem.
That also will give you a sense of why the number is different. I think the first one, you know, how the number is come up with, the time frame is the bigger part numerically. Actually, you know, those buildings that are refurbishments or office to residential conversions, for instance, which is just not something we've done, I don't think many of our similar-looking peers have done, is quite significant. You know, it's not a simple answer of you take number of buildings and multiply it by cost. You know, sort of actually a small number of sites make up quite a big part of the cost. There are some quite, you know, even if you took all that out, there's still a big gap on the numbers.
It's why we're slightly hesitant about saying it's X, because you could talk about slightly different things. Oh, should we give the microphone over this side?
Ami Galla from Citi. Just two questions from me. The first one was on London. If you could touch on the sort of demand trends that you're seeing in London today? Also have you seen a significant tick up in investor demand in London market? Broadly, in terms of your view on the land market in London, how do you see that? My second question is on the planning reforms in the country. With the government taking a pause on it as things stand, where do you think the focus of the next phase of planning reforms would move towards? Thank you.
I, Jennie, definitely for you on planning reforms and also on London land, and I'll just pick up the sort of London, you know, sort of housing market investors. I mean, London has, it's smaller today for us than it ever has been. Prime London is very small at the moment. We have, and we said, you know, through the years, invested in London schemes, but they tend not to be sort of very sort of high rise. Our level of investor sales has not ticked up. In fact, it's been going progressively down. I think in London that's, you know, partly availability, but it's also, you know, since the financial crisis, we've not really majored on investors. You set your product up for investor sales and it's just not where we are.
I think, you know, our comment on the wider market would be, you know, investor sales in London, this is not telling you anything you don't know, have been low for the last four years, and that hasn't really changed. For us, it's just become an increasingly irrelevant part of the business. I think, you know, as you've heard me say before, the London market, the prime London market is so divorced from the rest of the U.K. that I don't even think it tells us about what might happen in the wider market in the future. Then Jennie, sort of London land and planning reforms?
Yeah, I mean, I would say as part of a balanced scorecard of a group-wide business, you know, we've continued to invest in sites in Greater London, but they do fit our profile of that sort of a broader London base, you know, homes for Londoners, and not really sort of concentrating on that sort of investor or overseas market in Central London. So, you know, I'm reasonably comfortable with the investments that we have from a land perspective in that wider sort of London context. Just picking up on planning reform. You know, we had a bit of a false start last year with the Planning White Paper.
Probably, you know, there was a bit more on housing than we might have anticipated originally in the Levelling Up paper. Really the only guidance that we had is, you know, a reconfirmation of those 300,000 new homes a year, which is, you know, pleasing to have that. A nod to shortening local plan timescales, which I think, you know, is something that we would all see as a positive move and a necessity given the sort of the resource issues in local authorities. The infrastructure levy was referenced again, you know. There's going to have to be, you know, some way of bringing that forward.
To Pete's point around another burden like a roof tax, around cladding on top of an infrastructure levy, on top of, you know, quite a considerable amount of other burdens. There is a point where, you know, a landowner will just say there's too much take and there's not enough sort of long-term return for them to actually sell their land. Then the final point was that sort of point towards brownfield land. The expectation is something, Ami, late spring, either a planning bill or a Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, to sort of deliver some of those sort of expectations.
Thank you. Oh, should we go right back over to the far corner?
Thanks very much. It's Charlie Campbell at Liberum. I've got two questions. The first is on the new house type. Just wondering whether you've adjusted the plot cost ratios in the land bank for the new house type or whether that could therefore drive that down as the new house type is implemented. Secondly, I think I know the answer to this, but just to get some clarification on it. In terms of the 2023 volumes, just want to understand what the planning delay risk in that. I think you've been quite clear that you've tried to factor that out.
Are you expecting planning to go back to kind of quicker sort of pre-COVID time periods, or are you kind of happy with where it is now? Well, are you budgeting for where it is now and therefore there's maybe upside if planning normalizes, or should we think of that as a risk to 2023?
Okay. I think on the sort of land bank and the position on the new house type range, you know, it's dynamic and there is a transitional process. New acquisitions, and we've been factoring the new house type range for a while. Although we're now in sort of delivery phase, we will have had planning drawings and sort of land appraisal drawings for some time. As the teams, if they decide to replot, then they would be sort of recognized if there's any sort of rebalancing, and that will be looked at in the round as to whether there's a cost or a benefit in undertaking that replan versus just an uplift in Part L and F post-June 2023.
On the sort of planning sort of timescales, our teams do take, you know, a realistic view of planning and rather than planning timescales then the likely planning delays that we're going to achieve. We've taken a real-world view of those. I have to say, you know, it is a dynamic environment and we're always sort of recasting those based on the live environment. I mean, I think it's fair to say that some of our teams have seen actual benefits in time, you know, planning timescales, so trying to be fair with, you know, better efficiency in local authorities but an equal number if not more finding that there are real challenges around resources and planning authorities at present.
Thank you. Sorry, can I just follow up with on the plot cost. You said there's an extra 200-400 sq ft per acre from the new house type. Is that about 2%? Have I got the math on that right?
Well, I mean, it depends on.
Yeah.
Where you're starting from.
Sure.
Yeah.
Just on average, is that about the right sort of percentages?
Yeah. I don't think that's far out.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Doesn't feel like we have any more questions in the room. Yeah, Debbie, you know, conscious that a few people couldn't get here, but also conscious that many some questions that were asked sort of might have already been asked, but do we have anybody, you know, online who wants to ask any questions?
No questions from.
Okay, no questions. I think we're done. Thank you. You know, as I said at the beginning, I'm not gonna get all sentimental and maudlin, but I would like to thank you for getting here today 'cause I recognize that was a challenge, and it's nice for me to be able to do one face-to-face before I go rather than having yet another Zoom or Teams call or sort of a voice over one. You know, for the analysts in the room particularly, just thank you for the engagement and the conversation and the challenge sometimes, but also the proper sensible debate over the years around what the business can do and where we're going. You know, I hope you feel that we've always been very open with you, and I'm confident that that will continue.
Thank you for the support and the dialogue and for the Taylor Wimpey people in the room. Plenty of time to say goodbye, but thank you for getting here today 'cause it's been nice to see everybody here. Thanks very much and take care.