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Net additions of new housing rise 15% to 217,000
The number of new additional homes in England was 217,350 in 2016/17 – a 15% rise – which puts the government on course for its million homes target.
The statistics on net additional dwellings, released this morning, showed 183,570 of the additions came from new build.
The overall figure is the second highest since the net additions began in 1992, bettered only by the peak of 223,530 in 2007/8.
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New build homes rose by 12% from 163,940 last year. There were also 18,887 additions from change of use – mostly from offices.
The figure today is almost 100,000 more than the nadir of the recession four years ago, when 124,720 new additions were counted.
Net additions count the total number of new homes added to the country’s housing stock, minus any demolitions or change of use away from residential.
Released once annually, they are routinely higher than the quarterly figures on housebuilding which are thought to undercount the actual delivery in many local authority areas.
They are also the measure the government intends to use to assess progress towards its million homes by 2021 target.
Under the net additions figures, 407,000 new homes have been added since 2015/16, leaving the government needing an average of 197,000 over the next three years to meet the pledge.
The Department for Communities and Local Government, which publishes the figures, describes the quarterly figures as “an important leading indicator but less comprehensive than net additional dwellings estimates”.
Tower Hamlets in London, the Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire and Dartford in Kent have the top three net addition rates per 1,000 dwellings in the country.
Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of the Home Builders Federation said: “The housing crisis built up over several decades and will take many years to fix. Today’s statistics illustrate the huge progress being made, and the rapid rate at which builders have responded to positive measures from government to deliver more and more new homes.
"It is no coincidence that since reform of the planning system in 2012 and the introduction of the phenomenally successful Help to Buy scheme in 2013, housing supply has increase by a massive 74%."
This story will be updated with reaction.
