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Housing starts down in official government figures
Housing starts in England for the first quarter of 2018 were down 8% the same time last year and 3% on the previous three months.
New housebuilding data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government show there were 39,350 starts in the three months to the end of March.
There were 38,160 completions in the same period, down 4% on 2017 and 9% on the previous quarter.
These statistics are based largely on data from warranty providers and are known to underestimate the true figure of housebuilding.
According to the figures, annual starts to the end of March stood at 157,480, down 3% on the 12 months to March 2017. Completions over the same period were up 8% to 160,470.
The figures on housing associations showed a particularly poor quarter with 5,230 starts recorded by associations, the lowest number since 2014. The figure also represents a 14% decrease on the previous three months.
These figures do not include some open market homes by housing associations or Section 106 homes purchased, and consequently fall well below another measure based on responses from the sector, produced by the National Housing Federation.
Focusing on the annual completions figure only, housing minister Dominic Raab said: “I welcome seeing the number of new homes being built increasing by 8% on last year.
“However we are restless to do much more to build the homes Britain needs – and make them more affordable for those on lower and middle incomes.”
Kate Davies, executive director of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA), said: “The number of new homes still falls short of the volume needed to meet the UK’s chronic housing shortage. The number of housing completions is at its lowest since 2016, despite ongoing policy pledges to mend what the government has itself described as the ‘broken housing market’.
“To have any hope of rebalancing the relationship between housing supply and demand, the government must do more to instil confidence in the new build sector.”
Ms Davies added that more needed to be done “to support the full housing spectrum, not just first-time buyers”, pointing to IMLA research showing homeowners move once every 19.2 years, compared with every 7.4 years in 1988.
