Countryside Properties is "confident" of making further progress as the company announced its latest trading update.

For the six month period from 01 October 2015 to 31 March 2016, the house builder revealed Group completions were up 15.4% to 1,095 units, compared to 949 units last year.

In addition, sales rates remained steady at 0.8 while forward sales increased 4.3% to £205.3 million (2015: £196.7 million).

Group chief executive Ian Sutcliffe said the Partnerships division had delivered a "strong performance", revealing the business has been awarded preferred bidder status on eight additional sites with a solid pipeline of work ahead.

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Overall, the division now has 7,727 plots in its landbank, with an additional 6,338 plots awarded as preferred bidder.

Total completions within Partnerships increased 12.2% at 803 homes compared to 716 homes the previous year.

Mr Sutcliffe said: "Trading has been strong, with excellent growth in the first six months of our current financial year. We are delighted with the progress we have made since listing on the London Stock Exchange in February and the support we have received from investors.

"We remain confident we are on track to make further progress for the full year and to continue to build on our success now as a public company."

(LM/MH)