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Redrow has said that housing reservations are at half last year's level after a sharp downturn in the market since February.

In a trading update, the UK housebuilder said: 鈥淭he trading environment has deteriorated to an even greater extent than we anticipated at the time of our interim results announcement.鈥�

It also said that Redrow's order book is 26.5% down on last year and that the previous cancellation rate of 20% has 鈥渆xperienced a marked increase since Easter鈥� although it did not reveal the new figure.

The warning follows recent figures from the Home Builders Federation showing a 66% fall in reservation levels at the end of April.

As a result of what Redrow called the 鈥渟evere restriction in the availability of mortgage finance鈥�, legal completions were expected to be 10% below its previous forecast of 4,200. The new figure of 3,800 is 21% down on last year's total of 4,823.

The company has made more redundancies as a result of the weak market. It said: 鈥淪ite and office overhead costs in the business remain tightly controlled to reflect lower levels of activity and we have made additional headcount reductions in the last few months.鈥�

The group also announced that its gearing is now 鈥渟lightly higher鈥� than previously anticipated, although it stressed it is still operating 鈥渨ell within鈥� its bank facilities of 拢480m.

Citigroup analyst Clyde Lewis said recent merger speculation with Bellway looked to be wide of the mark, given the figures. He said: 鈥淲e believe recent bid speculation is misplaced, as we see limited interest from any outside parties or industry players at the current time.鈥�

Redrow's share price was 3% down in early trading at 283p.