An ageing population is good news for a Hampshire retirement home builder which has reported record sales, revenues and profits for the last year.

Ringwood-based Churchill Retirement Plc reported a total revenue of £190.3m, an increase of 33 per cent on the previous year, for the 13 months up to the end of June.

The company’s profit before tax were £57.4m – up by almost half (48 per cent).

Total unit sales increased by 19.7 per cent to 589 apartments compared to 492 in 2015, with an average private sales price of £303,689, up from £257,484 in the previous year.

Churchill says it acquired 31 new sites during 2015/16 and now has a landbank of 3,190 plots with a potential gross development value of £950m

The firm says the future looks bright as their target market, people aged over 65, is predicted to rise by more than 40 per cent in the next 17 years to more than 16 million and by 2040 nearly one in four of the UK population will be 65 or over.

Commenting on the results, Spencer McCarthy, chairman and CEO of Churchill, said: “The market drivers underpinning the UK retirement home market remain robust with an ageing population and a shortage of suitable housing combined with a limited number of national developers with the requisite skills and expertise to build the retirement housing that the UK desperately needs.

“It is still too early to speculate as to any impact on the wider housing market from the EU referendum vote but, in the weeks since the result of the vote, our sales rates have remained robust. The voting statistics showed that the older population were generally more in favour of the decision to Leave, which suggests our target customer demographic should be broadly satisfied with the outcome and optimistic for the future.”

In the last year Churchill continued to expand its geographic reach towards the north, and also into the south west, with new satellite offices in Manchester and Exeter performing strongly.

The workforce increased by 19 per cent to 505 during the year (from 425).

Net debt at the year-end was reduced to £75.4m (2015: £97.0m), which Churchill say is comfortably within the Group’s agreed debt facilities