House builder Bovis Homes will be slowing its construction programme by up to 15% this year to boost overall build quality.
The move comes as the group admitted customer service standards “fell significantly” during 2016 after being dogged by complaints about homes sold unfinished and with electrical and plumbing faults.
Angry homeowners formed a Facebook group with some accusing Bovis of pressuring them to move in to incomplete houses to hit sales targets.
The company has set aside £7m to cover remedial work and compensation for affected customers along with other measures to improve service, including a review of production process and strengthening its operational capability.
Bovis said: “Our customer service standards have been declining for some time and combined with the delays to production towards the year end, we have entered 2017 with a high level of customer service issues.
“Our customer service proposition has failed to ensure that all of our customers receive the expected high standard of care.”
Quality issues in Bovis Homes has become the highest-profile case of poor workmanship in the house building sector. In the summer an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment highlighted the extent of the problem and the difficulties consumers were facing getting problems fixed. It called on the government to appoint an ombudsman. Construction manager has also been highlighting the problems around quality.
Bovis’s pretax profits in the year to 31 December fell 3% to £154.7m, below its expectations of £160m-£170m.
It also said that the search for a permanent chief executive was under way after the resignation of David Ritchie in January.
Interim chief executive Earl Sibley said: “We have a clear set of operational priorities for 2017 and are fully committed to improving our levels of customer service and delivering high quality homes this year and in the future.
Ian Tyler, chairman, said: “The process of transformation is already underway under Earl Sibley’s interim leadership and I am confident the plans in place will address the operational weaknesses we have seen in our business, and focus us once again on delivering high-quality product and service to our customers.”
