Paradigm’s surplus falls slightly thanks to development difficulties

It added: “The development for sale programme, principally shared ownership, has a significant impact on the overall surplus.

“While the volume of first tranche shared ownership and outright sales has reduced from last year, we have experienced higher margins, increasing from 24% in 2017 to 27% in 2019.”

Some housing associations in London struggled last year with the market for outright sale, which is going downhill at the fastest rate since the end of the global financial crisis.

As a result some have changed their development programmes, either reducing overall numbers or just cutting back on market-focused tenures.

The South East has also been hit by falling house prices but Paradigm said that it still aims to reach an average of more than 600 new homes per year, which would be a significant increase on the 350 homes it built last year.

The housing association’s turnover increased over the year from £123.9m to £130.1m but its operating costs grew more significantly, from £70m to £82.2m.

Julian Ashby, former chair of the Regulator of Social Housing and now chair of Paradigm, said: “During 2018/19, we renewed our commitment to ensuring our customers shape how we develop and manage our services to them and continued our systematic focus on the health and safety of our residents.

“We also moved towards more land-led developments, this meant a reduction in the number of homes built in the year but puts us in a stronger position for the future.”