One of Britain’s biggest housebuilders has now sold more than 5,000 homes under the Government’s Help to Buy scheme since its launch last April.

Persimmon, which trades as Charles Church and Westbury Partnerships, gave another positive update on trading today after reporting current total forward sales of £1.87 billion for 2014, a 35% rise on a year earlier.

It said it has sold 5,000 new homes to customers in England using mortgages associated with the Government-backed Help to Buy scheme, which offers equity loans on new builds to help buyers secure properties with a 5% deposit.

A further 600 homes have also been sold in Scotland and Wales to customers using similar mortgage products.

It said the recently announced extension of Help to Buy from March 2016 to March 2020 meant housebuilders will have the opportunity to increase the industry’s development commitments in order to support demand.

Persimmon, which currently has around 400 active sites in the UK, said visitor levels were up 10% so far this year against the same period a year earlier.

Its weekly private sales rate per site was 25% ahead of the prior year, with an average selling price of around £200,400 - a 3% increase.