Persimmon, one of Britain’s largest housebuilders, surprised the market by avoiding a large writedown on its £2.5bn land bank in spite of the steep decline in the housing market.

Mike Farley, chief executive, said he expected writedowns in the August interim results would be “tens of millions of pounds”, below the initial fears of some analysts, though he signalled further markdowns had not been ruled out. The shares rose 7¾p to 235¾p.